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The best plays and musicals in London (and beyond) to book in 2026
Dominic Cavendish Chief Theatre Critic · 2026-04-10 · via www.telegraph.co.uk for the latest news from the UK and around the world.

Chief Theatre Critic

Dominic Cavendish has been writing about theatre and comedy since the mid-1990s and became the Telegraph's lead theatre critic in 2014. He is the founding editor of the leading audio resource theatrevoice.com, now run by the V&A. In 2008, he adapted and produced the first UK stage adaptation of George Orwell’s Coming Up for Air.

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An all-singing, all-dancing Paddington Bear continues to dazzle the West End in an irresistible family-friendly musical of his own, while Kenneth Branagh casts a spell as Prospero in The Tempest. Plus, the year promises some thrilling new theatrical prospects, including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Gillian Anderson.

In this article, we direct you both to ongoing shows which our critics have placed among the best of the past year and the hottest tickets for the months ahead. We also highlight the crème de la crème of the West End’s long-running productions, from Operation Mincemeat to Oliver!

This article is updated weekly

This guide includes affiliate links that can earn us revenue

Skip to:

  • The best new London shows
  • The best West End classics
  • The best shows to see outside of London

The best theatre on right now, at a glance

  • Best play – The Price
  • Best family show – Oliver!
  • Best immersive theatre – Cabaret
  • Best funny show – Operation Mincemeat
  • Best musical – Paddington

The best new shows in London

High Society

Felicity Kendal steals the show in High Society
Felicity Kendal steals the show in High Society Credit: PAMELA RAITH

The Barbican’s newly established ritual of a summertime musical continues with another Cole Porter crowd-pleaser, building on the success of Anything Goes and Kiss Me, Kate. Bolstered by star turns – including an impish Felicity Kendal and the fantastic Freddie Fox, making his musical debut – and stuffed with witty, imperishable songs, Rachel Kavanaugh’s sleek production of High Society is an eminently welcome, frothy antidote to fretful times.

Barbican Theatre

Booking until: July 11 (then touring)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


War Horse

War Horse retains the power to move audiences to tears
War Horse retains the power to move audiences to tears Credit: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

War HorseMichael Morpurgo’s story of a Devonshire lad, his beloved horse and the horror of the First World War – is the most successful play in the National’s history. Nearly nine million people have seen it worldwide in the 19 years since the show premiered. Nineteen years: that was the age of those who suffered the highest casualty rates on the Western Front. While a sense of triumphant homecoming to the Olivier stage is entirely merited, this is, all the same, a theatrical blockbuster that never loses sight of the tragic sacrifice and loss it derives from.

National’s Olivier Theatre

Booking until: July 30 (then touring)

Tickets: nationaltheatre.org.uk


Care

Linda Bassett and Hayley Carmichael in Care
Linda Bassett and Hayley Carmichael in Care Credit: Johan Persson

Care at the Young Vic is a profoundly moving, beautifully acted portrait of life, and death, in a nursing home for the elderly. It’s the best thing writer-director Alexander Zeldin, 41, has done, which is saying something. His previous plays – about zero-hours workers (Beyond Caring); people living in temporary accommodation (Love); and regulars at a community kitchen (Faith, Hope and Charity) – comprise a damning dossier about society’s most vulnerable. Yet he emphasises the complex humanity behind the topical headline agendas; magnificently so, here.

Young Vic

Booking until: July 11

Tickets: youngvic.org


1536

1536 is the West End hit of the year
1536 is the West End hit of the year Credit: Helen Murray

A year after it was first seen at the Almeida, Ava Pickett’s remarkable debut play already has an adaptation into a BBC series in the works. Now, with Barbie star Margot Robbie on board as a producer, the production transfers to the West End. Set in May 1536, the month of Anne Boleyn’s arrest, trial and execution, it’s a vision of Tudor England from the vantage point of lowly but lively Essex folk: a trio of young female friends. It moves apace from some of the freshest, funniest writing around to some of the most devastating, with nuanced performances to match.

Ambassadors Theatre

Booking until: Aug 1

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Equus

Noah Valentine leads the charge in a thrilling staging of Equus
Noah Valentine leads the charge in a thrilling staging of Equus Credit: Manuel Harlan

Long before Jack Thorne created a sensation with the Netflix series Adolescence, Peter Shaffer whipped up a storm – in the West End and on Broadway – with Equus (1973): a physically experimental, ideas-rich play about a disturbed teenage boy undergoing psychiatric assessment after blinding six horses to whom he has become reverently and perversely attached. The testing role, requiring bouts of nudity, was famously played in 2007 by Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe and is now brilliantly inhabited by Noah Valentine. The relatively unknown 23-year-old leads the charge in a thrilling staging at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Menier Chocolate Factory, until Jun 27; Theatre Royal Bath: Jul 13-25

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Mother Courage and Her Children

Michelle Terry triumphs in Mother Courage and Her Children
Michelle Terry triumphs in Mother Courage and Her Children Credit: Marc Brenner

As the former Telegraph theatre critic Charles Spencer once so memorably and wearily wrote when confronted with another production of Mother Courage and Her Children, “Here she comes again, dragging her bloody cart behind her.” Brecht’s hefty thump of an anti-war drama, written presciently in 1939, can certainly be a daunting prospect, yet the Globe’s first ever foray into the German playwright’s work has two glorious weapons in its (pacifist) arsenal. The first is Anna Jordan’s astute and nimble adaptation and the second is artistic director Michelle Terry triumphing in the towering central role.

Shakespeare’s Globe

Booking until: June 27

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Grace Pervades

Miranda Raison and Ralph Fiennes in Grace Pervades
Love letter to theatre: Miranda Raison and Ralph Fiennes in Grace Pervades Credit: Marc Brenner

Henry Irving (1838–1905) and Ellen Terry (1847–1928) were the power couple of Victorian theatre, entertaining audiences at the Lyceum for more than two decades, with Shakespeare a speciality. Grace Pervades, David Hare’s genteel homage to them, and to the changing face of theatre itself, elicits a delightful double-act from Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Raison; he the model of distinguished propriety, she the radiant antidote.

Theatre Royal Haymarket

Booking until: July 11 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct

Henry Goodman and Eliot Cowan in The Price
Bang on the money: Henry Goodman and Eliot Cowan in The Price Credit: Alastair Muir

Although its 1968 premiere had mixed reviews, Arthur Miller’s The Price is now rightly regarded as one of his masterpieces, bang on the money about how our lives are shaped and how we take stock of them. It’s a bonanza for actors, too, especially the pivotal role of the old Jewish antiques dealer called in to evaluate the contents of a cluttered New York attic and dragged into a fraternal feud as to who is owed what. David Suchet excelled in the part in the West End in 2019. Now Henry Goodman does so too, in a beautifully judged production at Marylebone Theatre.

Marylebone Theatre

Booking until: June 21

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Avenue Q

'Sesame Street for adults': Avenue Q
‘Sesame Street for adults’: Avenue Q is back in the West End Credit: Matt Crockett

Twenty years ago, the bonkers-yet-ingenious “Sesame Street for adults” musical Avenue Q romped into the West End, juxtaposing cute puppets with jaw-dropping comic songs like Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist and, unforgettably, a rampant sex scene. This jubilant anniversary revival at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre has a few contemporary updates – added references to Netflix, AI and OnlyFans – but, happily, doesn’t sacrifice one ounce of the show’s gleefully outrageous humour.

Shaftesbury Theatre

Booking until: Aug 29 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Inter Alia

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Rosamund Pike reprises her shape-shifting performance (first seen at the National) as Jessica Parks, a high-powered Crown Court judge whose desire to see better outcomes for female sexual assault victims collides with catastrophe when her own 18-year-old son stands accused of rape. Suzie Miller’s follow-up to her huge hit Prima Facie is again directed by Justin Martin, and while not in the same league, it has still caused a stir, addressing one of the topics du jour: “toxic masculinity”. Jamie Glover and Jasper Talbot co-star.

Wyndham’s Theatre

Booking until: Jun 20 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Oh, Mary!

Catherine Tate has taken over from Mason Alexander Park as Mary Todd Lincoln
Catherine Tate has taken over from Mason Alexander Park as Mary Todd Lincoln

Oh, Mary! is the show London didn’t know it needed. Cole Escola’s comedy about Mary Todd Lincoln – which has been playing on Broadway since June 2024, smashing box-office records and winning two Tony awards – has proven a hit in the West End. Again directed by Sam Pinkleton, this knowingly bogus portrait of the First Lady as a dipsomaniac and frustrated cabaret star is a riot, laced with a truth about the necessity of self-expression. Catherine Tate has taken over from American actor Mason Alexander Park in the funniest role in town.

Trafalgar Theatre

Booking until: July 18 (including matinee performances on Saturdays and additional 17:30 performances on Thursdays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct

Paddington the Musical looks set to run and run
Paddington the Musical looks set to run and run Credit: Johan Persson

London has a new tourist attraction: at the Savoy, Paddington Bear has been brought to life in a funny, feel-good, family-friendly musical that looks set to run and run. The music and lyrics by Tom Fletcher (of boy band McFly) may not be game-changing, but the pure novelty value is off the charts: see the little visitor from Darkest Peru sing, dance (after a modest fashion) and bumble for Britain! Children will love him and adults will warm to his restorative sweetness.

Savoy Theatre

Booking until: Feb 2028 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Coming up

Sinatra - The Musical

Joel Harper-Jackson incarnates Frank Sinatra, joined by Ana Villafañe as Ava Gardner and Phoebe Panaretos as Nancy Sinatra. Written and directed by Joe DiPietro and Kathleen Marshall (both Tony winners), the bio-musical (first seen at the Birmingham Rep in 2023) follows Sinatra from his career-making New Year’s Eve 1942 performance at the Paramount Theatre through his tumultuous affair with Gardner, professional tailspin and comeback. Features golden oldies galore, including That’s Life, One For My Baby and Come Fly With Me.

Aldwych Theatre

Booking until: April 10 2027

Tickets: sinatramusical.com


Cyrano de Bergerac

Adrian Lester reprises his celebrated performance as Cyrano de Bergerac
Adrian Lester reprises his celebrated performance as Cyrano de Bergerac

Following its acclaimed RSC Stratford run, Simon Evans’s thrilling version (co-adapted with Debris Stevenson) of Edmond Rostand’s 1898 tragicomedy of unrequited love moves to the West End. Adrian Lester reprises his celebrated performance as the poetically gifted, large-nosed hero. Adorned with a protrusive snout, this charismatic actor – making his RSC debut – lends the stirring, thought-provoking evening swash-buckling star quality, alongside Susannah Fielding as Roxane.

Noël Coward Theatre

Booking: Jun 13-Sept 5

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


The Misanthrope

Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) makes her National debut in a gender-flipped reading of Molière’s 1666 comedy of scathing anti-sociability. Oh plays Alice, a leading novelist who despises modern mantras of kindness and respect, speaking out against fashionable ideas and lending her voice to frowned-on causes. Written in contemporary verse, Martin Crimp’s updated version explores the price a female artist must pay for speaking her mind. Paul Chahidi and Abigail Cruttenden have already been cast too, while NT boss Indhu Rubasingham directs.

National’s Lyttelton Theatre

Booking: Jun 16-Aug 1

Tickets: nationaltheatre.org.uk


Jesus Christ Superstar

 Six performers will share the role of King Herod
Six performers will share the role of King Herod

Eurovision chart-topper Sam Ryder makes his West End debut as Jesus in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s breakthrough 1971 musical about Christ’s final days. Tim Sheader’s dynamic, Olivier-winning production – first seen at the Open Air theatre, Regent’s Park in 2016 – comes to Lloyd Webber’s Palladium for an 11-week season. Six performers will share the role of King Herod across the summer run: Simon Russell Beale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Boy George, Layton Williams, Richard Armitage and Julian Clary.

London Palladium

Booking: Jun 20-Sept 5

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Arcadia

Carrie Cracknell's production of Arcadia transfers from the Old Vic
Carrie Cracknell’s production of Arcadia transfers from the Old Vic Credit: Manuel Harlan

Tom Stoppard’s intellectually thrilling and romantically stirring 1993 masterpiece moves to the West End after a successful run at the Old Vic. Shuttling between the early 1800s and the 1990s, it weaves ideas about shifting scientific knowledge, landscape gardening, the hazards of biography, and more besides, into a spellbinding portrait of transient, mysterious existence itself. The idea is to recreate Carrie Cracknell’s in-the-round staging at the Duke of York’s. Casting still to be confirmed but it’s in safe hands.

Duke of York’s

Booking: Jun 20-Sep 12

Tickets: arcadiawestend.co.uk


The Oresteia

Mary-Louise Parker, Tom Glynn-Carney, David Morrissey and Rosie Sheehy will star
Mary-Louise Parker, Tom Glynn-Carney, David Morrissey and Rosie Sheehy will star

Australian director Simon Stone continues his radical reimagining of classics at the Bridge with Aeschylus’ foundational text. In this version starring David Morrissey, a modern-day family wakes up in a hellish Greek myth and can’t find their way out. Stone, whose modernised Lady from the Sea played the Bridge in 2025, reunites his creative team including the ever-bold set-designer Lizzie Clachan.

Bridge Theatre

Booking: Jul 2-Sep 19

Tickets: bridgetheatre.co.uk


Trainspotting The Musical

Robbie Scott as Renton in Trainspotting The Musical
Robbie Scott as Renton in Trainspotting The Musical

Thirty years after the film that defined the era, Irvine Welsh’s phenomenal best-seller about young Edinburgh junkies has become a British musical. Welsh adapts his own work, directed by Caroline Jay Ranger, bringing back Renton, Sick Boy, Begbie, Spud, Tommy et al alongside an ensemble cast and live band. Featuring tracks from the film soundtrack plus original numbers (music and lyrics by Stephen McGuinness and Welsh), Welsh promises “a bigger, loudly beating human heart than either the book or the film”.

Theatre Royal Haymarket

Booking: Jul 15- Sept 5

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Man to Man

Tilda Swinton returns to the stage in Man to Man
Shout in the dark: Tilda Swinton returns to the stage in Man to Man

Tilda Swinton will tread the boards for the first time in more than 30 years in Manfred Karge’s one-woman play, portraying a widow who has to disguise herself as her late husband to survive 1930s Germany. (Swinton originated the role in its 1988 UK premiere.) It sold out quickly but check the website nearer the time for returns. And have a look at the rest of the Royal Court’s 70th anniversary season: it’s very good – featuring Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape, the much-anticipated Broadway transfer of John Proctor is the Villain (which is a revisionist take on Miller’s The Crucible) and the latest play from Ryan Calais Cameron.

Royal Court Theatre

Booking: Sept 5-Oct 24

Tickets: royalcourttheatre.com


Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup lead a new production of Edward Albee’s defining 1962 modern masterpiece, staged by Marianne Elliott in the round. In the early hours on an American college campus, Martha and her husband George host new professor Nick (Josh Dylan) and his wife Honey (Phoebe Horn) for after-party drinks and verbal violence. As the booze flows, the young couple are drawn into George and Martha’s toxic games, a prelude to devastating truth-telling. Anderson – who scored a huge hit in London playing A Streetcar Named Desire’s Blanche DuBois in 2014 – has wanted to play Martha for decades, describing her as “ferocious, volatile, and impossible to contain”. Crudup (Harry Clarke, High Noon) is becoming a much-loved regular here.

@sohoplace

Booking: Sep 21-Dec 19

Tickets: sohoplace.org


Into The Woods

Into the Woods involves a folk-tale mash-up
Into the Woods involves a folk-tale mash-up Credit: Johan Persson

London was set to get a big revival of the late Stephen Sondheim’s fairytale musical in 2022. But Terry Gilliam’s production was daftly scrapped by the Old Vic after a woke in-house mutiny (reportedly prompted by remarks the director had made in interviews), and ended up being staged in Bath instead. The honour now falls to another American director, Olivier Award-winner Jordan Fein, whose beautiful production for the Bridge Theatre is an unalloyed delight.

Noël Coward Theatre

Booking: Sept 22- Jan 9

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


The Cherry Orchard

Kristin Scott Thomas returns to Chekhov after winning an Olivier for The Seagull
Kristin Scott Thomas returns to Chekhov after winning an Olivier for The Seagull

Kristin Scott Thomas reunites with director Ian Rickson for a new adaptation of Chekhov’s final masterpiece by Conor McPherson. Scott Thomas plays Ranevskaya, who returns to her childhood estate to confront the ghosts of the past. The pair previously collaborated on The Seagull, for which she won the Olivier for Best Actress. McPherson (The Weir, Girl from the North Country) will apply a fresh lens to this portrait of a world in uneasy transition.

Harold Pinter Theatre

Booking: Oct 3 - Jan 9 2027

Tickets: thecherryorchardplay.co.uk


The Lives of Others

Stephen Dillane, Keira Knightley and Luke Thompson star in this world-premiere adaptation of The Lives of Others
Stephen Dillane, Keira Knightley and Luke Thompson star in this world-premiere adaptation of The Lives of Others Credit: Oliver Rosser, Feast Creative

Keira Knightley, Stephen Dillane and Luke Thompson star in Robert Icke’s world-premiere adaptation of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s 2006 Oscar-winning film. East Germany, 1984: a writer and an actor are placed under state surveillance. Spying on the couple from the attic above their apartment, the Stasi officer becomes increasingly interested in their lives… Icke and producer Sonia Friedman renew their creative partnership following Oedipus, Hamlet, The Doctor and 1984.

Adelphi Theatre

Booking: Oct 14-Jan 9 2027

Tickets: thelivesofothersplay.com


Eurotrash

Kathryn Hunter and Ben Whishaw reunite in Eurotrash
Kathryn Hunter and Ben Whishaw reunite in Eurotrash

Ben Whishaw and Kathryn Hunter reunite following their work together on the Netflix hit Black Doves in this darkly comedic adaptation by Colin Teevan of Christian Kracht’s 2021 international bestseller. The pair play mother and son embarking on a chaotic road trip through the Swiss Alps to give away their vast family fortune - amassed from arms investments and dairy products - in an attempt to escape the shadows of their past. Walter Meierjohann directs.

Young Vic

Booking: Nov 13 - Jan 9

Tickets: youngvic.org


The best West End classics

Cabaret

Hannah Dodd as Sally Bowles in Cabaret
Hannah Dodd as Sally Bowles in Cabaret Credit: Marc Brenner

Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Cabaret became a kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph when it launched in 2021 with Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley in the lead roles. The cast has changed multiple times since then but this revival is as electrifying as ever. It affirms the sensuous joy of performance and re-asserts the ability of Kander and Ebb’s 1966 classic, set in Weimar Germany amid the spectres of rising fascism, to send shivers down the spine. Never mind “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome”. I’d say, dig like your life depended on it into your pockets.

Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre

Booking until: Sept 26 (including matinee performances on Wednesdays and Saturdays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Hamilton

Hamilton
Hamilton: The most talked-about musical of the century

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s show is the most talked-about musical of the century – and for good reason. As much as it offers an alternately witty and stirring history lesson, charting the bullet-fast rise of founding father Alexander Hamilton (c1755 to 1804) and his demise from a duelling shot, it maps out the emergence of the global order we have so come to depend on. Miranda does things with rap so nifty that even people who hate rap will relent. Believe every single word of the hype.

Victoria Palace Theatre

Booking until: Oct 3 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Hercules

Hercules the musical
Hercules the musical: a triumphant version of Disney’s 1997 riff on the myth Credit: Matt Crockett

Disney stage adaptations tend to be conceived with a ruthless eye on the film’s pre-existing fanbase. Not so this theatrical version of the 1997 animated riff on the Hercules myth, which is pointedly – and triumphantly – aimed at families with young children rather than the original’s numerous disciples. Adaptors Kwame Kwei-Armah, the Young Vic’s former artistic director, and Tony award-winning script writer Robert Horn may have made a few transgressive changes, but the fleet-footed result has retained the original’s goofy knockabout humour and refusal to take itself seriously.

Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Booking until: Sept 5 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

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Les Misérables

Les Misérables at the Sondheim Theatre
Les Misérables at the Sondheim Theatre Credit: Johan Persson

Some 40 years after it received its premiere (critics, sniffy at the time, have been forced to eat humble pie ever since), Les Misérables is not only the longest-running musical in the West End but is still one of the hottest tickets in town. Old-fashioned though this take on Victor Hugo’s sprawling 1862 epic may seem in its mixture of high-powered ideas and gut-wrenching emotions, it’s a show that feels lastingly revolutionary. It represents what theatre should be.

Sondheim Theatre

Booking until: Oct 3 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


My Neighbour Totoro

My Neighbour Totoro
My Neighbour Totoro: The stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s 1988 animated feature Credit: Manuel Harlan

This stage adaptation of the 1988 animated feature My Neighbour Totoro was a monster smash for the RSC even before it started previews. Hayao Miyazaki’s tale follows Satsuki and Mei, the daughters (aged 10 and four) of a university professor, Tatsuo. What fans loved about the film has been beautifully served here. The Gruffalo-like Totoro, who is befriended by the tiny but indomitable Mei, is magnificently humongous and the wow-factor of his spectacular appearances is worth the price of admission alone.

Gillian Lynne Theatre

Booking until: Aug 30 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

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Oliver!
Oliver! is back after a 14-year absence Credit: Johan Persson

After a 14-year absence, it’s clear that the West End and Oliver! are getting along all over again; booking for Cameron Mackintosh and Matthew Bourne’s rousing, irresistible revival has now been extended to March 2026. For all its Dickensian gloom, Lionel Bart’s musical is so fundamentally ebullient it’s like bottled joy: guaranteed to put a spring in your step. Form an orderly queue and prepare to receive saving dollops of theatrical delight.

Gielgud Theatre

Booking until: Oct 3 (including matinee performances on Wednesdays and Saturdays)

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Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat: ‘An inventive gem of a musical’ Credit: Matt Crockett

Based on one of the Allies’ most startling counter-intelligence ruses of the entire Second World War, this inventive gem of a musical is a delight. The operation involved a dead body being planted with fake documents so that the Germans would think the Allies were planning on invading Sardinia instead of Sicily. What the show has in winning spades is a Pythonesque delight in irreverence that doesn’t short-change the intellect, delineating the journeys each character goes on, the social transformation the war engendered, and the pathos attending the macabre plot.

Fortune Theatre

Booking until: Sept 26 (including matinee performances on Tuesdays and Saturdays)


The Phantom of the Opera

Killian Donnelly and Lucy St Louis in The Phantom of the Opera
Killian Donnelly and Lucy St Louis in The Phantom of the Opera Credit: Johan Persson

Like any indestructible artwork, The Phantom of the Opera plugs into myth. From Caliban to Quasimodo to Frankenstein’s monster, the shunned repulsive figure with beauty on the inside has always been able to reach out and yank at our heartstrings. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sumptuous tunes, so too does this Phantom. Lloyd Webber’s epic tearjerker, which reopened at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 2021, has to be seen in all its kitsch, gothic glory.

His Majesty’s Theatre

Booking until: Oct 3 (including matinee performances on Wednesdays and Saturdays)

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Six

Six the Musical
Six the Musical Credit: Pamela Raith

Composers Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss completed their witty, magpie-minded sonic onslaught about Henry VIII’s six wives while in their final year at Cambridge (2016-17); it has since become a theatrical phenomenon and they deserve the riches, opportunities and acclaim that have come their way. Six is a marvellous show, dripping with invention and intelligence, and one which brings not just happiness in the moment but hope for the future of the British musical.

Vaudeville Theatre

Booking until: Jan 31, 2027 (including matinee performances on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays)

Book ticketsvia Tickets | Telegraph Media Group provided by London Theatre Direct


Stranger Things: The First Shadow

Stranger Things: The First Shadow
Stranger Things: The First Shadow is a successful spin-off to Netflix’s phenomenal sci-fi series Credit: Manuel Harlan

This stage spin-off to Netflix’s phenomenal sci-fi series provides a much-needed shot in the arm for the West End – and a fillip for fans left bereft by the conclusion of the drama on the small screen. With key input from Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers, the Fifties-set prequel manages to match the series’ mind-blowing nature. The main storyline takes us to Hawkins when trouble started brewing, in 1959; sleuthing high-school youths Jim Hopper and Joyce Maldonado (known to fans from their older incarnations in the series played by David Harbour and Winona Ryder) investigate the mysterious violent death of pets, and fumble their way towards the real culprit. It’s barely possible to spoil the impact of this show which operates at a frequency that fizzes synapses and makes you feel you’ve entered a shadowy, dreamy realm.

Phoenix Theatre

Booking until: May 31 (including matinee performances on Fridays and Saturdays)

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Kenneth Branagh returns to the RSC in The Tempest
Homecoming: Kenneth Branagh returns to the RSC in The Tempest Credit: Seamus Ryan

In a remarkable full-circle, Kenneth Branagh has returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company, the company that launched his gilded Shakespearean career. He played Henry V in 1984 when he was just 23 and his last RSC Stratford appearance was as Hamlet over 30 years ago. This Tempest is the definition of a hot ticket and Branagh, 65, answers our high expectations. He’s an understated but spellbinding Prospero. (He’ll also play Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, running from July).

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Booking until: June 20 (including matinee performances on Thursdays and Saturdays)

Tickets: rsc.org.uk


Atonement

Ian McEwan's novel Atonement is receiving its first stage adaptation
Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement is receiving its first stage adaptation

Ian McEwan’s 2001 novel receives its world premiere stage adaptation, directed by Adam Penford. On a blazing English country estate in the summer of 1935, 13-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a passionate scene between her sister Cecilia and their housekeeper’s son, Robbie – and will go on to make an accusation that will fatally alter their lives. Stretching from the 1930s past the Second World War to the present-day, this version comes courtesy of Christopher Hampton, who wrote the 2007 film adaptation with Keira Knightley and James McAvoy and whose theatrical hits include Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Philanthropist.

Festival Theatre, Chichester

Booking until: Jun 20

Tickets: cft.org.uk


Game of Thrones: The Mad King

George RR Martin’s epic fantasy world comes to the RSC in this surefire blockbuster adaptation, directed by Dominic Cooke. Set a decade before the events of the novels, Duncan Macmillan’s prequel unfolds at a decisive jousting tournament in the castle of Harrenhal as spring arrives. Lovers meet, revellers celebrate, and a plot against the Mad King brews. Witness the events that shaped Westeros! Martin has called the RSC “the obvious choice” for the spin-off premiere, citing Shakespeare’s influence on his work.

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Booking: July 20- Sept 5

Tickets: rsc.org.uk


The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs receives its world stage premiere
The Silence of the Lambs receives its world stage premiere

Hannibal Lecter was named the greatest villain in American cinema thanks to Anthony Hopkins’s chilling performance in the 1991 film. Now, Gina Gionfriddo adapts Thomas Harris’s multi-million-selling novel for its world stage premiere. When FBI trainee Clarice Starling is sent to interview a cannibalistic murderer, it’s hoped that his brilliant mind will help her to catch a sadistic new serial-killer, Buffalo Bill. But there’s nothing straightforward about Lecter, as we know. Casting tbc.

Curve, Leicester, Aug 1-15, then touring the UK and Ireland

Tickets: silenceofthelambsplay.com


Our Friends in the North

The BAFTA-winning 1996 TV phenomenon returns to Newcastle, the city where it’s set, in a new stage adaptation by the series’ original creator Peter Flannery, with Jack McNamara, artistic director at local playwriting powerhouse Live. The focus of this fresh theatrical version is two episodes in which Nicky, Mary, Tosker and Geordie (played in the series by Christopher Eccleston, Gina McKee, Mark Strong and Daniel Craig) come of age in the city during the turbulent early Thatcher years (1979-1984).

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Booking: Oct 15-24

Tickets: theatreroyal.co.uk


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