The V&A promised "an immersive, multi-sensory and theatrical journey through Pink Floyd's extraordinary world" which will "chronicle the music, iconic visuals and staging of the band, from the underground psychedelic scene in 1960s London to the present day". The exhibition will also include items from stage performances, as well as instruments, handwritten lyrics, architectural drawings and psychedelic posters. After it was announced in 2012, the V&A's David Bowie exhibition became the fastest-selling in the museum's history.
Mercury Rising - Freddie Mercury has joined fellow rock-idols Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by being honoured with a blue plaque at his childhood home in west London. The English Heritage plaque commemorating the former Queen frontman was unveiled by the band's guitarist Brian May at the unassuming terraced house in Feltham where Mercury lived with his parents after the family arrived from Zanzibar in 1963.
On a higher plain, an asteroid has been named after Freddie Mercury to mark what would have been the singer's 70th birthday. The Queen frontman has had his name attached to Asteroid 17473, which was discovered in 1991 - the year he died. Brian May told a gathering of 1,250 fans at Montreux Casino in Switzerland that the asteroid marked "Freddie's outstanding influence in the world".
Family Affair - A new production of musical comedy The Addams Family is to tour the UK and Ireland next year. Directed by Matthew White, the show will open in Edinburgh on April 20, 2017, before touring to locations including Northampton, Southend, Birmingham, Truro, Cardiff and Dublin.
It has music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. The show, based on the characters created by Charles Addams, previously enjoyed a run of nearly two years on Broadway starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. Casting for the forthcoming tour is yet to be announced.
Global Reach - Shakespeare's Globe has teamed up with the BBC for the first ever live stream of a production from the theatre. The final performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream will be broadcast online for free on a BBC website on 11 September, and will then be available on iPlayer for the following 60 days.
Globe artistic director Emma Rice said the broadcast would enable the show "to reach even more people than we can fit in the Globe over an entire summer season". Peter Maniura, head of digital development at BBC Arts, said it would be a "fitting climax" to the online Shakespeare Lives festival, which the BBC is co-curating with the British Council. He continued, "Theatre is all about the live experience and I'm delighted that the energy, brilliance and sheer fun of Emma Rice's smash-hit production is going to reach the biggest possible audience globally through this live stream."
Phone Home - Actors in London, Munich and Athens are to perform onstage simultaneously via video link, as part of a production telling the stories of the world's asylum seekers and refugees.
Drawn from workshops with migrants in the UK, Germany and Greece, Phone Home is based on the real life experiences of refugees, and will dramatise their stories in what is being described as a "powerful reaction to the language of politicians and media".
The production follows more than a year's worth of development and collaboration between Upstart Theatre in the UK, Pathos Theater, Munich and Highway Productions in Greece.
(Jim Evans)
