Andrzej Lukowski

Yes, Christmas is fun for adults. But it’s mostly fun for kids, who thrill to the sights, the sounds, the light and the implied magical forces of the season. Plus the presents. So many presents.  I’m Time Out’s theatre editor and lead kids writer, and I can confirm that as far as my own two children are concerned, Christmas is the most magical time of year. It’s also one of the few holidays where you’re not necessarily desperately scrabbling to find things to do with your kids every day during a two week holiday that is largely take up with family, opening presents and feasting, plus a handful of days on which London actually, properly shuts down. When are the school Christmas holidays in London in 2025? They run Monday December 22 to Friday January 2 2026. So in effect your children will be off From Saturday December 20 to Sunday January 4. And watch out for the school piling a cheeky inset day on after. Really, though, kids’ Christmas in London starts way before the schools break up: it’s pretty much go from when the big trees go up and the iconic lights are switched on. By the end of November you can easily meet Santa, go for an ice rink and take in a pantomime, all on a single day. This list is a best of things to do with kids over the London Christmas period. There is, unabashedly, a lot of highlighting of classic activities: have you been to Christmas at Kew? Great! You should go again. But there are also a handful of entirely unfestive events because maybe come early J

Greetings of the season. Well, I'm actually writing this in early September. But then, how long is Christmas theatre season in London exactly? Certainly it’s in full swing by late Novemebr, with virtually every pantomime and kids’ show in the city up and running way before Advent, with most of them running until the new year. I’m Time Out’s theatre editor, and I have seen more pantos and Julia Donaldson adaptations than any human being should. But also it’s always an exciting time of year: Christmas is the best time to take children to the theatre because there are such a dizzying array of options, for all ages. This list is an attempt to try and put some order on the gargantuan breadth of children’s and family friendly theatre across the city during the season. It doesn’t include long running West End shows – you know about The Lion King, right – but is an attempt to compile as many festive shows for young audiences as possible, at theatres big and small. We’ve divided our list into family-friendly Christmas shows – that is to say, shows suitable for children, but that you could easily visit without – and shows that are directly aimed at a younger audience. Please note that there are so many pantomimes in London that they have their own seperate list – see link below.  RECOMMENDED: The best Christmas pantomimes in London. Find more Christmas shows in London. 

Hello, and welcome to the Time Out theatre reviews round up. From huge star vehicles and massive West End musical to hip fringe shows and more, this is a compliation of all the latest London reviews from the Time Out theatre team, which is me plus our team of freelance critics. September is a seriously busy month on the London stage, as most major theatres take a break for the summer and therefore all return with new work more or less simultaneously. While we can’t review every single thing, we will be churning out as many reviews as can in this busiest of months. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2025. A-Z of West End shows.

The summer holidays feel like they’re barely over, but suddenly it’s cold and dark and you have to amuse the little ones for at least another week. In other words, welcome to October half term. Despair not, however: there’s always loads to for kids to do in London at this time of year, not least because they blessedly coincide with the run-up to Halloween.  My name is Andrzej and I’m Time Out’s lead kids’ writer and also parent to two children who go to school in Bromley, where for some reason the local authorities think we want a two-week half-term. As ever, the idea with this list is to highlight the best new, returning or last chance to see shows; London also has plenty of evergreen fun for children of all ages, quite a lot of which you can find in out list of the 50 best things to do with kids in London. When is October half-term this year?  This year, London’s October half-term officially falls between Monday October 27 and Friday October 31 (ie children will be off continuously between Saturday October 25 and Sunday November 2). Some children will be off for two weeks, that is to say Monday October 20 to Friday October 31 (or Saturday October 18 to Sunday November 2 counting weekends). Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this October half-term. 

London is more than two thousand years old. It’s a world-class hub for history, art, culture and politics. Frankly, it’s a bit overwhelming. What is the best way to explore a city that has so damn much on offer? Where do you begin in an area that’s 1,572 square kilometres? The answer: on foot.  This is where a guided walking to tour comes into it. Street tours. Museum tours. Food tours. There are literally hundreds to choose from in the capital. So this is where I step in, tour guide-esque, with some suggestions of my own, to help you understand all that history a little better.  A great tour guide will inspire and fascinate you – before you know it, you’ll enthusiastically be sharing the stories you heard with Linda on the checkouts at your local supermarket, or Iqbal at work. The ones included here are the well-worth doing and unsung tours that deserve your attention. Yes there’s your usual Changing of the Guard and Westminster Abbey tours, but there’s also some more offbeat ones which are frankly exceptional.  Why take my word for it? I’m a tour guide myself. I have since led all sorts of walks around London, from cemetery tours, queer history walks to pub outings. I regularly guide in places like The British Museum and National Gallery and after a decade in the industry, here are some of my choices for an unforgettable experience. Need more sightseeing inspiration?🛥️ Here are London’s best boat tours💂‍♂️ Check out our list of 101 things to do in London🛏 Or stay in one

THERE IS A REDIRECT ON THIS TO KIDS 50!!! Six. Weeks. Or thereabouts. The school summer holidays are the greatest test of any parent’s logistical mettle, seeing as they’re longer than mozt people’s entire quota of annual leave. And this isn’t America where you can just send your children off to a camp all summer and forget about them. We have to keep our kids entertained. So good luck with that! And I mean it: my name’s Andrzej, and I’m Time Out’s theatre and kids editor, and as a parent of two I have to deal with this nonsense every year myself. So to help you organise and plan, here are my picks of the best new and temporary London family events this summer, from theatre shows to dinosaurs, exhibitions to more dinosaurs (there are a lot of dinosaurs around this year). When are the school summer holidays 2025 Officially the 2025 London school summer holidays run Wednesday July 23 to Friday August 29. But many schools will break on Monday 21 July, and virtually all of them will add a teacher training day or two on at the start of September. What to do in London in the school summer holidays 2025 See below for a list of new and temporary kids’ summer holiday activities.  For evergreen ideas for things to do with children in the capital, see our 50 Things To Do With Kids In London. For summer things to do with younger kids, see our 30 Things To Do With Babies and Toddlers in London. For summer things to do with teenagers, see our Best Things To Do With Teenagers In London 202

Hello parents and guardians! I’m Time Out’s children’s editor, and as a parent of two childen I can confirm that London is an amazing city raise kids in. Yes, you probably have to put a bit of commuter time in, but there’s a virtually endless stream of stuff for children to do, from playgrounds and parks to incredible kids’ theatres, free museums to slightly more expensive zoos and aquariums, and all sorts of stuff inbetween. This is a sort of ever-evolving checklist of what we think the 50 best things to do in the city with kids are. Some of it is incredibly obvious: you’re probably aware that London has a Natural History Museum. But it’s worth stressing is a really, really great Natural History Museum, and whether you’re just visiting or have lived here all your life, a visit is a terrific day out. Alongside that, we’ve got 49 other ideas for things to do with childen in London – the focus is inevitably on younger children of nursery and primary school age, but we aim to cater for all here, from tots to teens. That’s all ages, all budgets and all times of the year – as well as adding new London attractions as they open or return, this list will be switched around seasonally: ice rinks, grottos and pantiomimes are great to take your children to in winter, less so in summer. Of course, there are more than 50 things for children to in London, and we’ve got plenty of other recommendations for you: it‘s full of outdoor options, from high-concept adventure playgrounds to gorgeous

Oh yes it is! London panto season is back for 2025, and here’s Time Out’s complete rundown of every major pantomime in the city. For some Londoners the only time of year they'll visit a theatre, panto season is a bizarre, joyful, quintessentially British time to come together and watch some light-hearted spoof fairytales that revolve around men dressing up as women and/or farm animals. Within that, though, there’s huge variation, from the megascale London Palladium show with its filthy figurehead Julian Clary, to Clive Rowe’s brilliant panto purism at the Hackney Empire and JW3’s amusing Jewish spin that runs on Christmas Day itself. I’m Andrzej Łukowski, Time Out’s theatre editor, and while this page is simply intended as a round-up of London pantomimes, then it’s an *informed* round up – I have seen approximately four billion pantos over the last 15 years or so, and know what they’re all like, plus we’ll update this page with star ratings when our reviews of this year’s crop start rolling in in late November. London is a city that takes pantomime seriously, and even if the idea of seasonal frivolity fills you with dread, there’s a panto out there for you. RECOMMENDED: The best London theatre shows to see in 2025. The best Christmas theatre shows in London.

Hello – I'm Time Out’s theatre editor and also a parent, something that has a lot of overlap in London, a city with three dedicated kids theatres and where pretty much every other theatre might stage a child-friendly show. This round up focusses on the flagship shows at London’s kids theatres – that’s the Little Angel, the Unicorn and Polka – plus other major shows aimed at or suitable for youngsters. On the whole, pre-school and primary children are the age groups best served specifically, because secondary school aged teenagers can generally see adult theatre perfectly well (and will indeed often be made to do so!). So while the odd teen focussed show will make it in here, if you’re looking for something to do with teens why not consult our reviews page or what to book list. Our London kids’ theatre page normally contains information for all the main children’s shows running in London theatres this month and next month, and is broken down into three categories. Theatre for all the family is suitable for any age, including adults without children. Theatre for older children is specifically aimed at school-age children and teenagers. Theatre for babies, pre-schoolers and younger children does what the title suggests, and also includes shows suitable for younger primary school children. See also:50 things to do in London with kids.The best child-friendly restaurants in London.The top 9 museums in London for kids.

Hi! I’m Time Out’s theatre editor, and arguably I got into this game purely to avoid having to pay for theatre tickets. But over the years I've picked up a few tricks on how to enjoy theatre for less. London theatre has a reputation for being expensive. And there’s no getting away from the fact that it can be: top West End prices have soared in recent years, with many popular shows costing over £200 or even £300 if you want a nice stalls seat (possibly with some food and drink thrown in, possibly not). That’s as much as a music festival for a couple of hours of theatre. However, exorbitant top prices really aren’t the whole story. West End theatre is genuinely much cheaper than New York’s Broadway, and the cheapest tickets for any given show are almost always less than £30, and often less than £20. And there will always be inexpensive ways into a show, be it snagging a discounted online ticket or buying a bargain basement standing ticket. Want to go to the theatre in London but don’t think you can afford it? Here’s a hopefully exhaustive guide to why you’re wrong. Buy early Often when people complain about the prices of West End tickets, they mean the most expensive ones, which are often the only ones available after a show has officially opened. The fact is that every show has cheap seats, but they often sell out. Pay attention to what’s coming up and try to get in as early as possible. If there’s a long-running West End show you want to see, follow its socials so you when n

There are over a hundred theatres of all shapes and sizes throughout London, from tiny fringe venues above pubs to iconic internationally famous institutions like the National Theatre. And at the heart of it is the West End, aka Theatreland. What is a West End theatre? Unlike Broadway, where there are strict definitions based upon capacity, there is no hard and fast definition of a West End theatre. However, West End theatres are all commercial theatres – that is to say, they receive no government funding – and on the whole they are receiving houses, that is to say they don’t have in house artistic teams creating the work that they show (although often theatre owners like Andrew Lloyd Webber or Nica Burns may commission or even create the work). They are mostly based in the West End of London, although it’s not a hard and fast rule, with two major ‘West End’ theatres at Victoria. Most West End theatres are Victorian or Edwardian, although Theatre Royal Drury Land and Theatre Royal Haymarket have roots a couple of centuries before that, while @sohoplace is the newest (it opened in 2022). Capacity is similarly all over the shop: the 2,359-set London Coliseum is the biggest; the smallest is generally held to be the 350-set Arts Theatre. Many mid-size theatres like the Harold Pinter, Duke of York’s or Wyndham’s are greatly in demand for drama and serve as home to several different productions every year. Others, like the Lyceum or His Majesty’s have played host to a single musica

There are a hell of a lot of musicals running in London at any given time, from decades-long classics like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera to short-run fringe obscurities, plus all manner of new shows launched every year hoping for long-running glory. Here Time Out rounds up every West End musical currently running or coming soon, plus fringe and off-West End shows that we’ve reviewed – all presented in fabulous alphabetical order. SEE ALSO: How to get cheap and last-minute theatre tickets in London.

It’s up to every primary school parent to wrestle with their own conscience as to whether it’s appropriate to take their dinosaur-loving child to Jurassic World: Rebirth (rating 12A) this summer. But regardless of how much a wuss your kid is, a new installment in the franchise inevitably means a glut of family-friendly mesozoic-related shows. London is full of them this summer holidays, and foremost is the ‘official’ show Jurassic World: The Experience, which was last seen here three years ago at ExCel London (then called Jurassic World: The Exhibition), the last time a Jurassic World film came out.  God help me, I also saw it the last time around, and can report that the only significant change is the location: it’s now staged at NEON, a new venue just outside Battersea Power Station that will apparently be dedicated to similar immersive events. I don’t have a lot to say about NEON – it’s basically a big box – but the Power Station redevelopment is quite a fun place to take little ones to after the show, which is pretty brief.  It’s all good clean cretaceous fun The premise is the same as before. The experience is roughly 45 minutes long and begins with us boarding a ‘ferry’ to get out to Isla Nublar, home to Jurassic World. A handful of impressively gigantic animatronic herbivores greet us, along with some fun interactive bits, and then it’s on to the incubation lab where we can pet a ‘baby dinosaur’ (a puppet) and muck around with more displays. Next up we witness feeding

Alice Birch’s Romans: A Novel is a tiny bit like a British feminist version of The Lehman Trilogy, if the three Lehman brothers were replaced by the Roman siblings - three seemingly immortal, semi-allegorical, deeply damaged brothers whose brutal childhoods in the Victorian era have disastrous consequences for the next 150 years of humanity. The first new play in aeons from the author of modern classics Anatomy of a Suicide and Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again, Birch’s Romans is a bleakly irrelevant epic drama with a touch of Pyncheon-esque humour that centres on Kyle Soller’s Jack – undoubtedly the protagonist – plus his brothers: the sadistic, hugely successful Marlow (Oliver Johnstone) and the gentle, fucked up, possibly a serial killer Edmund (Stuart Thompson). They exist between the Victorian age and the present day without ever seeming to get past middle age. ‘My father wanted only sons – he had to get through three dead daughters to get to us’ intones Jack at the beginning. Wrapped in a huge scarf the Andor star kicks matters off playing Jack as a sweet young boy: a little hooked on the gung ho propaganda of the British Empire, but fundamentally a charming little thing who loves his mum and can’t imagine a world without her. Alas, she dies in childbirth, just as he has a strange encounter with his uncle John, an unsettling, blood-soaked figure returned from an unspecified Victorian war.  Things go downhill: Jack and his brother Marlow are sent away to boarding school whe

Despite an A-list cast of Bridgerton’s Golda Rosheuval and Letitia Wright of Black Panther fame, Not Your Superwoman feels like a wilfully scrappy note for Lynette Linton to end her exemplary reign at the Bush Theatre on – a fringey drama by a relatively obscure playwright (Emma Dennis-Edwards) that doesn’t at all feel like it’s being groomed for a West End transfer.  Linton has directed a lot of glossy slebby dramas at other theatres – she’s become a commercial director of some clout – but she’s kept the Bush’s rough-and-ready character intact throughout her reign. There’s definitely a charm to seeing the Bush not gussy up for its celebrity guests, but rather the superstar Wright tackle a no ego, down-to-earth role of a regular London girl. In it, she and Rosheuval play mother and daughter Joyce and Erica, with both of them sharing the flashback role of Elaine, Erica’s late grandmother. It charts an eventful trip to Guyana, where Joyce was born and Elaine lived until murky circumstances drove her to move to England as a single mother. Now the pair have come to the South American-Caribbean country to scatter Elaine’s ashes.  But it’s also something of a personal reckoning for the two of them: Joyce has clearly been an incredibly difficult mother to have over the years: flakey, and with a tendency to throw money at Erica when love is what she would have preferred. Erica wants to talk about this. Joyce does not. Both actors are superb. Rosheuval’s Joyce is a cool boho mum with

Last year, the Menier Chocolate Factory felt like the perfect place to revive The Producers. Mel Brooks’s gleefully bad-taste musical was a ’00s phenomenon, which sold out the massive Theatre Royal Drury Lane for the best part of two years, and did even better on Broadway. But the sheer scale of its success was never going to be repeated: the zeitgeist had long moved on.  But the bijou 180-set Menier was so small it never felt like it was trying to compete with the success of the original production. And there’s a pleasure in seeing a blockbuster scaled down. You could really feel the touches of grit and grime applied by director Patrick Marber to Brooks’s adaptation of his classic 1967 screen comedy about Max Bialystock, an amoral Broadway producer who comes up with a plan to fleece his investors by staging an appalling tasteless, surefire flop musical called Springtime for Hitler.  After sellout success at the Menier, it felt inevitable that The Producers would return to the West End. And here it is that time begins to catch up with it.  Virtually the entire Menier cast is back and on similarly good form, foremost Andy Nyman as Bialystock, a haunted little man who looks like one of Beckett’s tramps, riding his luck recklessly from day to day. It’s a very pleasurable show, that has a fundamentally funny central premise, and genuinely great songs from Brooks himself. But even though the Garrick is on the smaller side of West End theatres, the revival inevitably loses the sens

Let’s first acknowledge that there is not a person alive who is currently torn between spending their birthday theatre vouchers on a choice between either Mamma Mia! or Cow | Deer. Even if you have never heard of the great avant-garde director Katie Mitchell, it seems inconceivable that you would book into her Cow | Deer – a play whose publicity information clearly states that it is about a cow and a deer and features no dialogue – and go expecting a night of high-octane commercial theatre lulz.  The caveat, then, is that if you do think Cow | Deer sounds like a horrible idea then I am not here to convince you otherwise. Don’t take a risk on it! You would probably hate it. See Mamma Mia! Admin over, let’s get down to business. For Mitchell devotees and open-minded souls who think the premise sounds wild enough to be interesting, Cow | Deer is a virtuosic foley performance in which a quartet of actors (Pandora Colin, Tom Espiner, Tatenda Matavai and Ruth Sullivan) deploy a colossal array of objects – from hay bales to hot water bottles – to create the sounds of a cow and also a deer.  They’re augmented by sound design from co-creator Melanie Wilson that is heavy on animal noises (lots of birdsong, lots of cows, ie the actors don’t have to moo) and a script from Nina Segal that imposes a degree of discipline and direction and ultimately a rather haunting ‘story’ about humanity’s disruption of ordered nature. An audacious technical exercise the likes of which you’re unlikely to

A Catholic upbringing has left me both terrible at lying and capable of looking guilty about more or less anything. As such I was morbidly convinced that I would get the tap on the shoulder designating me a traitor in this live recreation (you could call it immersive theatre if you wanted) of the smash BBC game show. This proved to be entirely correct and long story short I lasted four rounds until I was rumbled (though it was a close thing and involved me being inexplicably betrayed by my fellow traitor). And speaking as somebody who has barely watched the show: I had a blast. If you can swallow the cost (a little under £50 in the evening, but cheaper by day) and go in prepared to be eliminated early then The Traitors Live Experience is extremely good fun. As much as anything, this adaptation from Immersive Everywhere is extremely well organised. Clearly you can’t make a note-perfect recreation of a show that involves 25 contestants staying at a remote Scottish castle for three weeks. But what they’ve done captures a sense of it very nicely. In this much shorter format, a large number of participants book in for a given time slot and are then divided into groups of around 12. Each is spirited away to their own round table, which comes complete with its own Claudia Winkleman-substitute host. Ours was a chipper young man who did a great job of geeing things along with help from a pre-recorded Winkleman (wisely she’s only used sparingly). It’s such a rock-solid conceit that it

Dublin’s Dead Centre is a true marvel, a theatre company that makes intensely visceral works that feel like they’ve been wrenched from a beautiful dream and a screaming nightmare simultaneously.  Written and directed by the company’s Ben Kidd and Bush Moukarzel in collaboration with BSL poet Zoë McWhinney, Deaf Republic is an adaptation of Ukrainian writer Ilya Kaminsky’s 2019 poetry collection of the same name, which concerns a town occupied by a hostile power in which the locals all go deaf after a soldier shoots a young deaf boy. What is Deaf Republic about?  It’s clearly quite a lot about Russia’s 2014 occupation of eastern Ukraine. It’s a fictional story set in a fictional town in an unnamed country, and the R word is never spoken once. But even if it weren’t for a couple of direct allusions to Ukraine, it would be glaringly apparent which contemporary occupation Deaf Republic was predominantly a response to. That said, it wilfully evades specificity, and its vision of the bleak absurdity of life under a hostile power clearly has resonance with Gaza as well as the Donbas. It is about deafness. Allegorically speaking, townspeople’s sudden loss of hearing feels synonymous with resistance. The question of whether they’re really deaf is a slippery one - the short answer is some of them are, a couple of them appear not to be. But their apparent inability to hear the enemy baffles and frustrates the occupying soldiers (all played by Dylan Tonge) who growls that they should be

This review is from the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Ohio transfers to the Young Vic.  The omens were always good for Ohio, which is produced by Fleabag and Baby Reindeer hitmaker Francesca Moody and had a transfer to the Young Vic nailed on months before the Fringe started.  It’s the work of Abigail and Shaun Bengson, aka indie folk duo the Bengsons, aka a band you probably haven’t heard of if you live over here because their oeuvre seems to largely consist of theatrical performance pieces that haven’t toured outside of the US… until now. I’m not going to pretend I know much more about them than the above paragraph but if I had to guess I’d venture that Ohio was intentionally devised with the object of introducing the duo to an overseas audience. It’s a potted history of the pair’s lives, albeit a dreamy, impressionistic one, starting with Shaun explaining how he lied to his son about the existence of an afterlife in order to cheer him up. It then moves through such subjects as the worm Abigail had as a childhood pet, Shaun’s loss of the Christian faith of his childhood, and the degeneration of his hearing that led to him developing severe and incrementally increasing tinnitus. It’s hard to describe the show formally. The pair would make good kids’ TV presenters - she’s bouncy and ebullient, he’s dry and courteous. There is definitely a presentational aspect to the whole thing: I learned an awful lot about the mechanics of tinnitus! There’s also an intoxicating wildness t

This review is from 2024. In 2025 A Christmas Carol returns to the Old Vic for the ninth years in a row (and possibly its last as it’s Matthew Warchus’s final Christmas at the Old Vic). Paul Hilton will play Scrooge. Although it’s the second most influential Christmas story of all time, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is a tale that’s disseminated by adaptations rather than because everyone still religiously reads the 1843 novella. And for eight Christmases in a row – including 2020! – the main form of dissemination for Londoners has been the Old Vic’s stage version, which packs ‘em into the huge theatre for two months every year. I haven’t been since it debuted in 2017, when Rhys Ifans played supernaturally reformed miser Ebeneezer Scrooge. Back then, Matthew Warchus’s production of Jack Thorne’s adaptation was simply a stage version, of a story endlessly retold each year. Now it is essentially the version, not because nobody else does it (in 2022 I counted 11 adaptations), but because of the unparalleled scale of its success: it’s certainly the most successful stage adaptation of this century, and quite possibly ever. Eight Christmases on and it’s charming, but groans under the weight of its own success. What really struck me on second viewing was the conflict between Thorne’s smartly empathetic text and Warchus’s ecstatically OTT Christmasgasm of a production. Making a few judicious departures from Dickens, Thorne seeks to humanise Scrooge, get to the heart of his was

The omens were not good for this stage musical adaptation of the 2010 Christina Aguilera screen vehicle Burlesque. Foremost among them: it debuted in Manchester and Glasgow last year, but most of its creative team was summarily axed and replaced by one Todrick Hall, an erstwhile American Idol contestant who the bumpf describes as ‘one of the most high-profile and prolific storytellers in the world’. I am slightly exaggerating here. The hugely talented British set designer Soutra Gilmour, for instance, was replaced by Nate Bertone, another American. And Hall was already involved. But he now directs, choreographs and has written most of the songs, plus he stars in not one but two roles. Oh, and while the book is officially written by Steven Antin – who wrote and directed the film – it’s hard not to see the hand of Tod in the larky, metatheatrical script, which is not only very different in tone to the film, but also gives all the larkiest, most metatheatrical lines to Hall’s brace of characters. Anyway, Burlesque isn’t totally inept, but it’s ultimately just bludgeoning, a clangorous three-hour pantomime on steroids that makes the original film look like a model of tastefully plotted restraint. It feels like being trapped in a warzone Jess Folley is Ali, a young lass from Iowa with an impressive pair of lungs, her virtuosic singing encouraged by her sassy choirmaster Miss Loretta (Hall). One day she discovers that her birth mother Tess (US cabaret star Orfeh) is still alive a

The last Michael Jackson musical to grace the West End was ‘Thriller – Live’, a revue show that was almost endearingly dumb, consisting as it did of the King of Pop’s greatest hits interspersed with a bunch of ripped men bellowing about his sales figures.  ‘MJ the Musical’ is the real deal, however, an estate-endorsed jukebox show that’s gone down a storm on Broadway. Significantly, it has a book by Lynn Nottage, one of the great American playwrights. Her text addresses aspects of Jackson’s life with a frankness that’s refreshing, if selective. It’s set in 1992, during rehearsals for the ‘Dangerous’ world tour and handily a year before child sex abuse allegations were first levelled against Jackson. ‘MJ’ thus avoids any allusion to said controversy. At the same time, it doesn’t do that thing where it pretends there was nothing unusual about him: there are allusions to everything from Bubbles the chimp to Jackson’s changing skin colour.  For the West End debut of Christopher Wheeldon’s production, ‘present day’ Michael is played by the jaw-droppingly talented original Broadway star Myles Frost. To say he’s a triple threat would be an understatement: in the acting department he’s maybe more of a vague menace, but as a dancer and singer he is extraordinary. Yes sir, he can moonwalk, and slip into all of Jackson’s propulsive dance routines effortlessly. His voice isn’t quite as piercing as Jackson’s, but it’s a fair approximation, and frankly remarkable given what he’s doing with

This review is from the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I promise I won’t go on about this too much, but I think I may have been responsible for The Sun’s bizarre 2023 attack on Lorna Rose Treen, in which the tabloid accused the rising sketch star of killing comedy with ‘wokery’. I was on the panel for the Dave Joke of the Fringe award that year, and I nominated Treen’s harmless – and by no stretch of the imagination woke – gag that won that year’s award (it revolved around ‘cheetah’ and ‘cheater’ being homophones). So unless another panellist also nominated it then that was me - sorry Lorna! This isn’t simply a flex because Treen has a new show, but because within a few minutes of it starting she very amusingly breaks with its Americana theme to address the Sun ‘incident’ – she has the article printed out to show us – and to declare that her intent this time is to kill theatre as well. 24 Hour Diner People isn’t really a theatre show, but it’s certainly notably higher concept than its predecessor Skin Pigeon. It follows a series of oddball characters at a quintessentially American diner – possibly at some point in the ‘80s – with Treen playing most roles and audience members being dragooned in to tackle the rest.  It is a huge amount of fun, in large part for the same reason Skin Pigeon was: Treen tackles the bizarre series of characters – from our daydreaming waitress host to a trucker with really long arms to a bizarrely kinky schoolgirl – with total conviction, and a palp

Seventy-five years ago the Southbank Centre – or the earliest iteration of it – roared into life with its inaugural event the Festival of Great Britain, a showcase for the best in British arts, science and design that was launched in an effort to cheer up a glum postwar London.  Though there are few around who remember it now, the Festival of Great Britain had eight million visitors during its months-long run and is still talked about to this day – there was some attempt to invoke its memory in the complicated semi-farrago that was Unboxed/Festival UK*22/‘the Festival of Brexit’ (if you can’t remember this don’t worry). But now a true successor has been announced: next year the Southbank Centre’s 2026 75th anniversary programme will play explicit homage to the Festival of Great Britain, most notably in You Are Here (May 4 and 5 2026), a huge weekend-long celebration of British youth culture conceived and directed by the one and only Danny ‘London Olympics Opening Ceremony’ Boyle, plus Gareth Pugh, Carson McColl and Paulette Randall. Thousands of performers will be involved in a celebration that promises to take over the entirety of the vast Thames side arts complex, with Boyle promising that there will be so much going on in every nook and cranny that every visitor will get a potentially totally different experience.  Throughout the rest of the season there will be an emphasis on bringing back big figures from throughout the Southbank’s history. The great Anish Kapoor will re

★★★ Although Aussie director Simon Stone has staged only a handful of shows in the UK, it has to be said that you can see a pattern developing. Take a classic play – previously Lorca’s Yerma and Seneca's Phaedra – rewrite the whole thing into aggressively modern English that revolves around long, light hearted stretches of posh people swearing amusingly, season with a bit of Berlin-indebted stage trickery, and finally change tack and wallop us with the tragedy, right in the guts.  The Lady from the Sea is based on Ibsen’s 1888 drama of the same name, and shares its basic plot beats while tinkering with much of the underlying characterisation and motives.  In a starry production. Edward (Andrew Lincoln) is a wealthy neurosurgeon married to his second wife Ellida (Alicia Vikander), a successful writer. They live with Edward’s two pathologically precocious daughters from his first marriage: Asa (Grace Oddie-Jones), who is at university, and Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike), who is at school. Tossed into the mix are Heath (Joe Alwyn), a hot but nerdy distant cousin who has come to Edward to get a diagnosis for a worrying neurological symptoms, and Lyle (John Macmillan), Edward and Ellida’s droll family friend, who is also hot but nerdy. On Lizzie Clachlan’s bougie white thrust set – suggestive of a fancy modern home, without spelling it out – The Lady from the Sea proceeds exactly as you’d expect a Simon Stone play to proceed. There is a lot of very posh banter, that’s very entertaining

Last time Sheridan Smith was in the West End it was with Ivo van Hove’s Opening Night, a leftfield art musical that in no way deserved the sneering notices it got in the more backwards quarters of the press, but at the same time was clearly much too weird for a mass Theatreland audience. But Smith’ll bounce back this Christmas, rejoining forces with Opening Night producers Wessex Grove as she plots her West End return.  That said, an Alan Ayckbourn okay definitely sounds like a safer commercial bet than a formally challenging Euro-musical: she’ll star in a revival of the veteran British dramatist’s hit 1985 play Woman in Mind, directed by ex-Donmar boss Michael Longhurst.  As with much of Ayckbourn’s work, this one comes with a conceit. It concerns Susan (Smith), a woman who takes a bump to the head and starts to experience two versions of reality: one real, one imagined.  It’s certainly an interesting play to revive: Ayckbourn was at his commercial zenith when it premiered but it’s been an age since he was last in the West End. It’s not entirely risk free. Then again, it sounds very much up the street of the ever winsome Smith, and a meaty role to get her teeth into to boot. Expect her to be back to her hit-making ways. Woman in Mind is at the Duke of York’s Theatre, Dec 9-Feb 28 2026. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2025. Denise Gough and Billy Crudup will star in a new West End version of classic Western High Noon.

Although it’s still the number one destination in the country to see weird stuff that the Victorians taxidermied, the Natural History Museum has been quietly getting into cutting edge technology in recent years, with the launch of its Visions of Nature AR experience and immersive film Our Story with David Attenborough. Now it takes a further step into the 21st century via a new collaboration with the popular international virtual gaming chain Sandbox VR (which has three branches in London). And it doesn’t take a genius to work out what the new game might be about: much as we love the NHM for its exhaustive exploration of the natural world, the headline attraction has long been dinosaurs, and such is the focus of the Sandbox VR collab. Age of Dinosaurs is a brand-new virtual reality adventure that has been created in collaboration with the museum and palaeontologist Darren Naish. Specifically aimed at a younger audience, it’ll see players visit 15 different locations throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous period, where they'll encounter some of the most scientifically accurate dinos ever depicted in any medium. It’s an exploration game, that seems profoundly unlikely to give you the opportunity to zap a T-rex with anything more than a camera. But the visuals should be second to none, about as close as you can get to voyaging back to Mesozoic days outside of a time machine.  Age of Dinosaurs is due to roll out to Sandbox VR’s more than 60 global locations in 2026, date TBA. The

There are only two shows in the Globe’s new 2026 indoor winter season – but they’re both extremely intriguing. The Tempest (Jan 17-Apr 12 2026) is a Globe staple, but you’re unlikely to have ever seen one like this before. The great avant-garde theatre maker Tim Crouch – last seen at the Globe with his one-man Shakespearean kids’ show I, Malvolio – has been given the keys to the theatre. He’ll star as Prospero in a version of the play in which Crouch’s magician, his daughter Miranda, and the spirits Ariel and Caliban are the only living creatures on the island, and the story of their escape is merely a made up tale they tell themselves to pass the years. It should be fascinating, and certainly like no Tempest you’ve seen. Fascinating for a totally different reason is Deep Azure (Feb 7-Apr 11 2026), a 2005 play by the late Chadwick Boseman who is – of course – better known as a Hollywood actor, most particularly as Black Panther in various Marvel films. Azure Blue predates all that by a long way: it’s a poetic Shakespeare-inspired drama that follows Azure, a young woman whose life spirals out of control after the shooting of her fiancé Deep, and must then have the strength to recover. It’ll be directed by Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu, whose previous credits include the smash hit For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy. The new Globe winter programme may be short, but it’s as interesting a season as you’ll see on a British stage anywhere this year (or nex

Irish actor Denise Gough is one of the most acclaimed stage performers of her generation, most famously for her monumental breakthrough role as a recovering addict in Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places and Things. The role propelled her to screen success, most notably with Tony Gilroy’s Andor, in which her role as a cold-blooded, ultimately out of her depth imperial intelligence officer brought her to global notice. Gough’s stage roles have consequently become rarer and choosier, and her only British part in recent years has been a revival of People, Places and Things. But now she’s back in a very intriguing project, starring opposite cult US actor Billy Crudup. High Noon is the debut play by Hollywood screenwriter Eric Roth, who has received a walloping six Academy Award nomination in his day, for projects running from Forrest Gump to Dune. High Noon is not an original story, but rather a stage adaptation of Fred Zinnemann’s classic 1952 screen Western.  It’s not as mad a shout to put on stage as might first appear: starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, the film followed Kane, the sheriff of a small town in New Mexico, and his new wife Amy. Kane is on the cusp of retirement, but word reaches him that a vicious outlaw he put away is out of jail and intent upon revenge. He tries to enlist the townsfolk to help him… but they’re all too scared or indifferent. It’s a heavily psychological drama that attracted considerable controversy because it was widely regarded as an allegory f

Rebecca Lucy ‘Self Esteem’ Taylor is no stranger to the West End. She launched her new album A Complicated Woman with a highly theatrical run of shows at the Duke of York’s Theatre earlier this year. And before that she properly trod the boards with a starring part in the musical Cabaret, playing the iconic role of Sally Bowles from autumn 2024 to spring 2024. While Cabaret was a big deal, she was also somewhat shielded from the spotlight: she was only taking over the part of Sally and there were no reviews, while the focus wasn’t solely on her as she was co-lead with Jake Shears, who played the Emcee. Next year, however, sees the former Slow Club singer take on what might be the biggest challenge of her career. She’s to return to the Duke of York’s play the lead in a major West End play, the fiftieth anniversary revival of the great British dramatist David Hare's early work Teeth ‘N’ Smiles, which debuted at the Royal Court way back in 1975.  Will she be up to it? It has to be said that the play is a pretty damn good fit: she’ll play Maggie, the embittered frontwoman of a failing rock band, bitter, broken and obstinate as the 60s that she once flourished in now grind to a bitter end. There are even songs by Nick and Tony Bicât, which have been updated and added to by Taylor herself.  Inevitably this is going to appeal to her fanbase: but the real question is whether she can wow the curious West End theatregoer who may be intrigued by the first revival of his play in decades.

UPDATE: Full run dates have now been confirmed for Dracula, which will play at the Noël Coward Theatre Feb 4 to May 30 2026, a chunky 16-week stint. Technically a public on sale date has not been confirmed, but a presale open to all has: you can buy tickets to Dracula on Monday September 22 if you sign up here.  Cynthia Erivo got her big break on the London stage, though probably not when she expected to. In 2014 the then-unknown Brit was cast in the lead role of the massive West End folly I Can’t Sing!, a parody of The X-Factor that turned up years too late for the zeitgeist and duly died a death at the gargantuan London Palladium. But unbenownst to her, she’d already made it: the previous year she’d got great reviews in the tiny Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s classic novel The Color Purple. It never went to the West End. But it did go to Broadway, and after that Erivo’s reputation was duly made, Hollywood came calling, and she’s not acted on a British stage since. That will change next year, though, when she makes the mother of all returns in not one role but 26 in a high tech one-woman stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. If that rings a bell, then it’ll be because last year Sarah Snook took the West End by storm in the conceptually similar The Portrait of Dorian Gray. Dracula isn’t a rip-off: it’s by the same Australian creative team from Sydney Theatre, headed by director-adaptor Kip Williams (who has in fact made

Over 30 years since he last trod the boards in Stratford-upon-Avon, stage and screen legend Kenneth Branagh will finally reunite with the RSC in 2026 as he tackles one of the few great Shakespeare roles he’s never played. In what is astonishingly his 35th Shakespearean role, he’ll star as Prospero in a huge new production of The Tempest (May 13-Jun 20) that will run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre next year. Prodigiously gifted as Branagh is, it’s perhaps a relief to see that he’ll be directed by the venerable former National Theatre boss Richard Eyre (who will be making his RSC debut) – Branagh’s last Shakespearean outing was a somewhat eccentric neolithic style take on King Lear that he starred in and directed himself, to bemused reviews. Here, he’ll be free to focus on the acting. Plus he’ll have time to stick around and team up with the great American actor Helen Hunt, who will make her RSC debut co-starring with Branagh in a new version of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard that’s been adapted by the brilliant satirical playwright Laura Wade – directed by Harvey it’ll run in the Swan Theatre July 10-August 29. And they’re not the only big names in RSC bosses Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey’s 2026 season. National treasure Mark Gatiss will make his debut for the company to take on the title role of a new version of Brecht’s classic Chicago-set satire on Hitler’s rise to power, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, directed by Seán Linnen. The season will be rounded out by a new pl

London Zoo – aka ZSL – is always evolving and you can expect a slick new attraction there every couple of years: the post-pandemic era has given us the huge walkthrough Valley of the Monkeys and a nifty new reptile house. ZooTown, though, is something different. It’s not an animal exhibit – or if it is, the animals in question are kids ages three to eight who will be able to book in for a 45 minute sesh at this brand new role play centre built in the zoo’s old reptile house (the one from Harry Potter). They’ll take on the role of a ZSL conservationist – horticulturalist, scientist or zookeeper – at the zoo within a zoo as they spend their session working their ‘jobs’ and playing with over 1,000 toys (a lot of which are admittedly zebra poo balls) including 63 cuddly animals – from parrots to komodo dragons – that have had microchips specially fitted by the zoo vets.  Photo: ZSL It’s both an opportunity for little ones to learn about conservation and what goes on behind the scenes at a zoo, and also a jolly good play session that perhaps acknowledges youngsters can sometimes have their attention spans tested by a full day at the zoo. To stop the sessions becoming oversubscribed but also ensure people turn up, you’ll need to book for them, and it’ll cost £1 to reserve a space in addition to your entry to the zoo. Sessions will become available to book three days in advance. Happy roleplaying, and here’s hoping your sprog has what it takes to cure the Komodo lurgie. ZooTown wi

David Bowie was quite possibly the most interesting man who ever lived, and boy did he know it. Although conceivably we’d have called this behaviour ‘hoarding’ if he hadn’t become enormously famous and successful, the man kept basically everything associated with his career – from before it was clear he’d have one, right through to his very last weeks.  Bowie had something like 90,000 individual items stashed away in a private archive in the US. And then he donated the whole thing to the V&A, which took possession of it following its use in the blockbuster touring exhibition David Bowie Is… To be clear, the V&A’s brand new David Bowie Centre is not a permanent home for the David Bowie Is… It's an archive.  Most of us, I would venture, do not spend a massive amount of time hanging out in archives. To be honest I went along to the V&A Storehouse – the museum’s new permanent public archive in Stratford – a bit hazy on what it actually was and how this would all play out. Opened to much fanfare back in May, the Storehouse is an enormously impressive building, like stepping into a fantastically reimagined version of the final scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, floor upon floor of artfully arranged furniture, clothing and other paraphernalia from the V&A’s colossal collection on full public display.  Photo: David Parry The David Bowie Centre occupies a corner of the second floor and it does, in fact, include a small exhibition that gathers together some fascinating items. Of cou

Greenwich isn’t currently what you call a theatre mecca: London’s maritime borough has a pleasant small scale venue in the shape of the Greenwich Theatre, but that’s pretty much it unless you count the Mamma Mia! dinner show at The O2. Astonishingly, then, it’s just been announced that what would appear to be the biggest theatre in London will open there next autumn in the form of the Troubadour Greenwich Peninsula Theatre. To be clear, it won’t have the biggest capacity house in London. But it will have two 1,500-seat theatres inside it, which is pretty damn big individually (bigger than all but a handful of musical theatre and opera houses) and combined it’ll rival the 3,069-set Edinburgh Playhouse for the title of biggest theatre in the entire country. What the hell is going to be staged there, you might reasonably ask. The Troubadour chain is an intriguing one that has been bringing large, flexible, somewhat architecturally prosaic spaces to London for a few years now. In a statement, the company’s co-CEOs Oliver Royds and Tristan Baker suggest the new theatre will be used to transfer in large scale shows struggling to find a berth in a West End with a very limited stock of available big theatres. Fair, but 1,500 seats is really big, and remember there are two of them.  Image: Troubadour If we look to the other Troubadours we might see some clues to the future of the new one. The Troubadour White City was a damp squib that staged a single ill-advised National Theatre tr