Andrzej Lukowski

This rolling list is constantly updated to share the best of what’s coming up and currently booking: these choices aren’t the be-all and end-all of great London theatre in 2026, but they are, as a rule, the biggest and splashiest shows coming up, alongside intriguing looking smaller projects.   London's best shows to book for at a glance: Best musical: Beetlejuice, Prince Edward Theatre Best Shakespeare play: Romeo & Juliet, Harold Pinter Theatre Best celebrity show: Krapp’s Last Tape, Royal Court Theare Best for teens: John Proctor is the Villain, Royal Court Theatre Best blast from the past: Cats, Open Air Theatre London’s theatre scene is the most exciting in the world: perfectly balanced between the glossy musical theatre of Broadway and the experimentalism of Europe, it’s flavoured by the British preference for new writing and love of William Shakespeare, but there really is something for everyone. It’s also beweilderingly big: between the showtune-centric West End and the constant pipeline of new writing from the subsidised sector – plus the Wild West of the fringe – there’s well over 100 theatres and over venues playing host to everything from classic revivals to cutting-edge immersive work. This is my attempt to make sense of all that for you. These are shows worth booking for, pronto, both to avoid sellouts but to get the cheaper tickets that initially go on sale for most shows but tend to be snapped up months before they actually open. Please note that the prices

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. December is the busiest time of year for London theatre – expect plenty of pantomime reviews and other seasonal fun but also a slew of major openings from across London’s many venues as the industry works itself to a frenzy before shutting down for Christmas. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2026. A-Z of West End shows.

There’s perhaps nothing more magical than seeing a play or musical in the open air, and London is absolutely the city for it. In defiance of the weather gods, our outdoor theatre season now stretches from March to late October: we’re are just that tough. Or at least, optimistic about the weather. Substantially it revolves around a few key theatres, notably Shakespeare’s Globe – open March to October and generally boasting a cheeky outdoor Christmas production – and the delightful Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, which is open late spring to the very end of summer. The former specialises in Shakespeare plays, while the latter has a musical theatre focus. Although the start of the year open air theatre is largely absent for obvious reasons, the season does get underway relatively early, especially at the Globe, where a truncated Shakespeare play – this year Romeo & Juliet – plays for schools and brave civilians from early March. Not sure what you'll need for an open-air theatre trip? Then don’t miss our guide to practical open-air theatre info.  If you’re interested in taking in some outdoor cinema this summer, head to our dedicated page.

To say that William Shakespeare bestrides our culture like a colossus is to undersell him. Over 400 years since his death, the playwright is uncontested as the greatest writer of English who has ever lived. Even if you’re not a fan of sixteenth century blank verse – and if not, why not? – his influence over our culture goes far beyond that of any other writer. He invented words, phrases, plots, characters, stories that are still vividly alive today; his history plays utterly shaped our understanding of our own past as a nation. London Shakespeare plays at a glance: Best celebrity cast: Romeo & Juliet, Harold Pinter Theatre Best weird: The Tempest, Shakespeare’s Globe Best for kids: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Unicorn Theatre Best rarity: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Shakespeare’s Globe. And unsurpisingly he is inescapable in London. The iconic Elizabethan recreation Shakespeare’s Globe theatre is his temple, with a year-round programme that’s about three-quarters his works. Although based in Stratford-upon-Avon, the Royal Shakespeare Company regularly visit the capital, most frequently the Barbican Centre. And Shakespeare plays can be found… almost anywhere else, from the National Theatre – where they invariably run in the huge Olivier venue – to tiny fringe productions and outdoor version that pop up everywhere come the warmer months.  This page is simple: we tell you what Shakespeare plays are on in town this month (the answer is pretty much always ‘at least one’). We we tell yo

Every week, a frankly silly amount of brilliant new restaurants, cafés and street food joints arrive in London. Which makes whittling down a shortlist of the best newbies a serious challenge. But here it is. The 20 very best new restaurants in the capital, ranked in order of greatness and deliciousness. All of them have opened over the past 12 months and been visited by our hungry critics. So go forth and take inspo from this list, which is updated regularly. Check in often to find out what we really rate on the London restaurant scene. And look here for all the info about the best new openings in February 2026. London's best new restaurants at a glance: 🍛 Central: DakaDaka, Mayfair 🍠 North: Ling Ling’s, Islington 🥟 South: Doma, Sydenham 🍝 East: Tiella, Bethnal Green 🥗 West: Martino’s, Chelsea February 2026: We have a new Number 1! The newly-opened Tiella in Bethnal Green has scooped the top spot thanks to knockout regional Italian dishes from chef Dara Klein. Other fresh additions include the slinky Martino's in Chelsea, Cambodian residency Barang at The Globe in Borough Market, foodie wine bar in a one-time Clerkenwell tattoo parlour Passione Vino, perfect produce at Dockley Road Kitchen in Bermondsey, Hunanese heat at Fiery Flavors in Surrey Quays, Ukrainian elegance at Sino in Notting Hill, cool diner energy at Dover Street Counter in Mayfair, Georgian classics at DakaDaka in Mayfair, and spicy southern Thai at the second branch of Plaza Khao Gaeng by Borough Marke

The Christmas holidays barely feel like they’re over but oh look: here’s our old pal February half-term, back again. Dealing with the little ones for a week in the middle of what is arguably the bleakest month of the year is always a bit of a shock to the system. But fear not! By way of acknowledgement of all this London really steps up with the indoor activities challenge, with the annual Imagine festival at the Southbank Centre as ever leading the way for a week in which there’s in fact plenty to do. Read on for our top tips.  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 February half-term this year?  This year, London’s February half-term officially falls between Monday February 16 and Friday February 20 (ie children will be off continuously between Saturday February 14 and Sunday February 22).  Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this February half-term.

Borough is known for having one of the best food markets in the world, but it’s also home to some seriously good restaurants as well as the brilliant market. The Borough Yards development – just next to this historic, edible wonderland – is where you’ll find some of the latest and greatest spots to have a sit-down feast, including west African restaurant Akara and southern Thai sensation, Plaza Khao Gaeng. If you’re off to SE1 and your stomach is rumbling, then consult this list so you can hunt down all our favourite spots for a fabulous feed, from contemporary Greek classics at Oma and Pyro, to pasta at Padella, classy French cuisine at Camille and seafood at Applebee’s.  RECOMMENDED: The best restaurants in London Bridge. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

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. London's kids theatre shows at a glance: Best musical: Matilda the Musical, Cambridge Theatre Best for teens: The Hunger Games: On Stage, Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre Biggest new show of last year: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre  Quirkiest show for tweens: Who Let the Gods Out, Polka Theatre  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 yo

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). London's best West End shows at a glance: Best musical: Hamilton, Victoria Palace Theatre Best for families: My Neighbour Totoro, Gillian Lynne Theatre Best ’80s classic: Les Miserables, His Majesty’s Theatre Funniest show: Operation Mincemeat, Fortune Theatre  Hippest hit: Hadestown, Lyric Theatre 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 sm

Hello! I'm Andrzej, the theatre editor of Time Out London, and me and my freelancers review a heck of a lot of theatre. This page is an attempt to distil the shows that are on right now into something like a best of the best based upon our actual reviews, as opposed to my predictions, which determine our longer range what to book for list. London's critics’ choice shows to book for at a glance: Best musical: Hamilton, Victoria Palace Theatre Best star casting: All My Sons, Wyndham’s Theatre Best for kids: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre Best old classic: Les Miserables, Sondheim Theatre  Best for a scare: Paranormal Activity, Ambassadors Theatre It isn’t a scientific process, and you’ll definitely see shows that got four stars above ones that got five – this is generally because the five star show is probably going to be on for years to come (hello, Hamilton) and I'm trying to draw your attention to one that’s only running for a couple more weeks. Or sometimes, we just like to shake things up a bit. It’s also deliberately light on the longer-running West End hits simply because I don’t think you need to know what I think about Les Mis before you book it (it’s fine!). So please enjoy the best shows in London, as recommended by us, having actually seen them.

For many people, musical theatre basically is theatre, and certainly 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. London's best musicals at a glance: Hippest musical: American Psycho, Almeida Theatre Best of the oldies: Les Miserables, Sondheim Theatre Best for families: Matilda the Musical, Cambridge Theatre The new big thing: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre  Funniest musical: Operation Mincemeat, Fortune Theatre 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.

What is immersive theatre? A glib buzzword? A specific description of a specific type of theatre? A phrase that has become so diluted that it’s lost all meaning? Whether you call it immersive, interactive or site-specific, London is bursting with plays and experiences which welcome you into a real-life adventure that you can wander around and play the hero in. London's best immersive shows at a glance: Best for dinner theatre: Faulty Towers the Dining Experience, President Hotel Best for Trekkies: Bridge Command, Vauxhall Arches Best for music lovers: Mamma Mia! The Party, The O2 Coolest: Lander 23, Carriageworks I’m Andrzej Łukowski, Time Out’s theatre editor, and I have run the immersive gamut, from a show where I had to take my clothes off in a darkened shipping container, to successfully bagging tickets to the six-hour Punchdrunk odyssey there were only ever a couple of hundred tickets for, to quite a lot of theatre productions where the set goes into the audience a bit and apparently that counts as immersive. There is a lot of immersive work in London, some of which is definitely theatre, some of which definitely isn’t, some of which is borderline, some of which is but doesn’t want to say it is because some some people are just horrified of the word ‘theatre’.  This page has been around for a while now and gone through various schools of thought, but the one we’ve settled on for now is that the main list compiles every major show in London that could reasonably be des

This review is from the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe. Every Fringe needs a Big Tear Jerker, and this year the title unquestionably goes to Haley McGee’s ‘Age Is A Feeling’, a prodigiously wise, sad and beautiful contemplation of a life. A barefooted McGee sits in a high wooden chair in front of us. Her age is somewhat indeterminate – she could be anywhere from late twenties to early forties – a fact that suits the show, which she performs in a circle of flowery poles, each with a word that corresponds to a story. At intervals throughout, audience members are invited to choose from a selection of the words. The stories that aren’t chosen are discarded, and we never get to hear them (though in some cases we get a brief outline). It’s kiiind of a gimmick: McGee’s point is that nobody ever truly knows a person, not even themself, and so we’re deliberately presented with an incomplete life. But what we’re presented with doesn’t feel particularly incomplete, and I kind of wonder if McGee just wrote too much material for the show. But it adds a certain artsy structure to proceedings, gives it a form beyond McGee just telling us a yarn - it’s a bit of a gimmick, but it’s not gimmicky. Anyway: McGee’s narrative starts at her protagonist’s twenty-fifth birthday: she recounts her dad telling her his belief that you can only hire a rental car from that age because it’s only then that your brain has finished developing. Somebody tells her age is a feeling, and McGee’s monologue goes on to try

Man and Boy is never going to displace The Deep Blue Sea or The Browning Version or even French without Tears as the quintessential Terence Rattigan work. But this is a truly extraordinary revival, that in its way has a significance that transcends the actual choice of play. Anthony Lau’s production is the first Rattigan I’ve seen that throws off the shackles of naturalism. Even amazing productions of his plays have basically been set in some variant of a period drawing room. But with Lau’s Man and Boy, Rattigan finally joins Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen et al in being deemed a playwright whose work can be given a batshit staging and still stand tall.  Staged in the round, designer Georgia Lowe‘s distinctly Brechtian, wilfully anachronistic set is a billiard table-like spread of green with a smattering of period decor (a wireless, a dial phone). The centre is dominated by a series of metal legged, Formica-looking tables of the sort that I don’t think existed in 1934, the year in which the play is set. And the very long dot-matrix printed financial report deployed at one point is definitely not right. Oh, and on the back wall in an alluring retro font is an actual cast list that illuminates the names and roles of whoever is on stage at the time (aesthetics aside, this is just a bloody good idea.). I don’t think every part of the design is loaded with meaning. But collectively it sets Rattigan free from chintzy tradition, and when combined with Angus MacRae’s wild, jazzy score g

This review is from 2019. Anansi the Spider returns in 2026.  Anansi the trickster spider went global a long time ago. But Justin Audibert’s inaugural production in charge of the Unicorn takes folklore’s most famous arachnid right back to his roots. Under Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey’s sprawling tree set, performers Afia Abusham, Sapphire Joy and Juliet Okotie file on clutching djembe drums, wearing West African clothes and accents as they launch into a funny, energetic trio of tales. In the first act, Anansi steals the world’s wisdom, only to reflect that this might have been a rather unwise decision; in the second he blags some vegetables from a green, er, fingered snake and cons a series of unfortunate other animals into paying the steep price demanded for the veg; the third hops to modern London – this time Anansi is a chancer who concocts an elaborate scheme to bag himself two dinners and ends up falling flat on his face. The three women divvy up three Anansi roles for a funny and lively show for ages three to seven that’s essentially old-fashioned storytelling, done with pace and care. There are no splashy spider costumes, but they’re not necessary – the young audience get that each woman is a different facet of Anansi. And if it’s mostly about the power of their words, then engaging music and lighting switches up the mood when small attention spans threaten to wander. There’s also some sublime physicality, be that Anansi teetering precariously up the enormous tree set,

I wouldn’t really say Miriam Battye’s comedy The Virgins reminded me of my own teenage years, although to be fair this is probably because I was never a teenage girl. However, it did make me laugh a lot. Rosie Elnile’s set is divided into two rooms of the same unremarkable house, with a corridor in the middle. In the lounge, Joel (Ragevan Vasan) is silently playing on a console with his random mate Mel (Alec Boaden). In the kitchen, his teenage sister Chloe (Anushka Chakravarti) and her friends Jess (Alla Bruccoleri) and Phoebe (Molly Hewitt-Richards) are getting ready for a big night out.  The boys are not the focus here. The girls – clever, wordy, neurotic, virgins – are painstakingly crafting a plan to go out and get… snogged. They are smart and irrational, sweet and maddening as they try to naively micromanage their journey to adulthood. They’re treating kissing boys – and maybe more than kissing if it comes to it – as a sort of military operation to be planned, accomplished and ticked off. Deploy troops, storm the building, bring them home. But in part that’s their brains denying their actual horniness – for starters Jess is certainly incapable of vocalising the fact she obviously has a crush on Joel.  It’s hard not to see The Inbetweeners as casting a bit of a shadow here: I’m not saying Battye has even seen or been directly influenced by the C4 sitcom about a similarly aged, similarly neurotic group of boys, but at the least it’s a pretty good reference point for the

Arcadia is just another play you can stage in the same way that the sun is just another thing floating in the sky. Tom Stoppard’s 1993 masterpiece is a work of burning, ravenous intelligence, and while almost universally acknowledged as his best work, I get why it’s not staged very often.  I think part of the reason is that the late, great Stoppard probably gatekeepered it from half-baked revivals. But it does definitely involve a lot of people talking about maths, and as much as anything else you really need to be able to pull together a cast who can make discussions about the statistical implications of a country estate’s 200 year-old gamekeeping logs really sing. It’s obviously not a play about gamekeeping logs. It’s a play about the unpredictability of humanity, how we’re defined by our transience, our sex drives, and our desire to understand. Carrie Cracknell’s revival is not an attempt to radically reconfigure Arcadia and I doubt anyone would be so foolish as to try – it’s an incredibly specific play. She and her team - notably designer Alex Eales - have however leaned nicely into the Old Vic’s current in-the-round configuration. A bit of furniture aside, they've forgone any attempt to make it look like the country estate on which the play is set, which we visit in the early 19th century and again in the present. Instead we’ve got a revolving circular stage and lights that look like a mobile of the stars – a specific allusion to some lines in the text but also a neat en

If you staged it as a radio play, Anna Jordan’s Lost Atoms would be a skilled but conventional story of a relationship, from meet cute through to heavily foreshadowed breakup. And as a piece of new writing, you do have to judge it as that play. And it’s not bad! Is it plausible that edgy party girl Jess (Hannah Sinclair Robinson) and aggressively square Robbie (Joe Layton) would become a couple? Maybe, or if they wouldn’t in IRL we know what Jordan means by their relationship. They both represent something the other is lacking: for her, he represents solidity, reliability, stability; for him, she’s the passion and vulnerability lacking. There’s a gripping plausibility to their halting progress and their frequent roadbumps: her flakiness and his uptightness make difficult bedfollows. Neither of them is capable of changing who they are. But they like each other enough to give it a good try, and for a while it works, taking them through marathon sex sessions, meeting each other’s parents, pregnancy, and even a trip to Grimsby. Gravity, though, is always pulling them a certain way, and frequent flash forward scenes indicate from the start that they don’t, as a couple, go the distance. When I say gravity is pulling them: I mean that more metaphorically than literally. Physically, they actually seem to defy gravity. That’s because Lost Atoms comes from the veteran physical theatre company Frantic Assembly – who celebrate their thirtieth anniversary this year  – and company boss Sco

There is a big mood on Heddon Street, and I don’t just mean from all the David Bowie tat (it’s the Mayfair alley where the cover of 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars was shot). I swear to Bowie himself that I went down here about 10 years ago and it was pretty quiet, but now it positively heaves with drinking and dining destinations, from Fonda to Ambassors Clubhouse. The latest is DakaDaka, which is Georgian slang that does indeed translate as ‘big mood’. Traditional food, served smartly, with an emphasis on flame-cooked stuff A popular mood too: it was absolutely heaving on the soggy Tuesday I visited, a virtually full house soaking up the 100-ish cover restaurant’s blaring music, ginormous smoke-belching open kitchen and communal tables. I don’t want to make it sound too raucous – we could hear ourselves talk – but if you prize a hushed atmosphere and despise conviviality, DakaDaka is probably not for you. The large, boxy room is not especially stunning in and of itself, but general good vibes carry it. And the food! If you’re not familiar, Georgia is kind of at the crossroads of the Middle East and Eastern Europe – between Turkey and Russia – and the cuisine very much reflects that in a ‘you get dumplings, but you also get pomegranate’ type of way. Chef Mitz Vora is not trying to offer a slavishly nostalgic ex-pats only experience, but neither is this about culinary reinvention. It’s traditional food, served smartly, with an emphasis on

This review is from 2012 and War Horse's last West End run.  The National Theatre's 'War Horse' has become ubiquitous. The toast of the West End and Broadway, as I write this it's sold out at the New London Theatre for the next two months – by contrast, you can book to see 'Matilda' next week. Its enormous success has negated the impact of Arts Council funding cuts on the NT, to the extent that the show has started to be singled out by some commentators as an example of 'safe' post-credit crunch programming. And, of course, there's the Steven Spielberg film, a curious affair sparked by the director's genuine love of the play, in which he gives Michael Morpurgo's 1982 a lavish screen treatment that has everything bar the one thing that made the play so special in the first place. That is, of course, Handspring's astonishing life-size puppets. Skeletally modernist in form but utterly, magically alive thanks to their talented army of puppeteers and Toby Sedgwick's phenomenal choreography, they are the true stars of Tom Morris and Marianne Elliott's production. Without them, Morpurgo's tale of how Devon-dwelling teen Albert Narracott signed up to throw himself into the meat grinder of World War I – in order to track down his beloved horse Joey – would be a likeable, humane, slightly formulaic introduction to the catastrophe of the war. With them, it is something different entirely, a virtuoso spectacle that combines grit and charm in equal measure. Joey is a multifaceted delight

Even if you have literally never wanted to be part of the crew of a spaceship you’ll probably have a fun time at Parabolic Theatre’s Bridge Command, an immersive theatre show slash team-bonding exercise slash LARPer paradise that sees you and your fellow contestants take command of the, uh, bridge of a spaceship and undertake a variety of missions that run the gamut from diplomacy to warfare. Occupying the spot in the Vauxhall arches that formerly hosted renowned gay sauna Chariots, Bridge Command is not a slick, cutting-edge vision of the future, and presumably budgetary limitations are part of this. But that’s fine: it very much has its roots in a wobbly sets golden age of sci-fi, with the earlier iterations of Star Trek looming particularly large. After donning our military jumpsuits, we are ‘teleported’ into the depths of space and onto an Earth battleship that will form our base of operations. There is a background scenario here, wherein humans fled a polluted Earth, found a magic element in the depths of space, went back home to fix Earth, only a load of colonists stayed behind and set up new galactic dominions, and we’re out there looking for more of the magic element. It’s best not to think too hard about it, but at the same time the performers throw themselves into it with impressive conviction - I was particularly delighted when the person operating the teleporter earnestly fielded questions relating to my phobia of teleporters.  Following said teleportation we’re i

  Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel American Psycho is very specifically a satire on late ’80s Manhattan yuppie culture. And yet the book’s murderous banker protagonist Patrick Bateman is transcendent of the decade he was written into. He’s timeless, a folk figure, shorthand for empathy-free consumer capitalist narcissism. If you describe somebody as ’a real Patrick Bateman’, you probably don’t mean they’re bang into Huey Lewis and the News. There are a few period chuckles at the start of Duncan Sheik and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa’s musical, which returns to the Almeida as Rupert Goold’s final production as artistic director, having been his first back in 2013. Arty Froushan’s Bateman is very proud of his anachronistic gadgets, notably his Sony Walkman and his 30-inch Toshiba TV. The score is unabashedly ‘80s, mixing retro electro pop original songs with a smattering of classic covers (New Order, Tears for Fears, etc). But even so, before long it starts to feel alarmingly current. It’s fascinating how different Froushan’s Bateman is to Matt Smith’s deadpan, dead-eyed take from 2013. They’re very different actors, for sure. But it’s more than that. Put simply, this Bateman is kind of sympathetic. A bit. Less vile than the book version, less an out-and-out whack job than Christian Bale in the film, more of an inner life than Smith’s take. Really, he’s a young man trying desperately to fit into a ghastly world of meaningless jobs, meaningless status symbols (the infamous business card

Like many a boomer child, Tom Hanks was smitten with the Apollo moon landings; but Tom Hanks being Tom Hanks, he never became unsmitten. The most beloved man in Hollywood has been nurturing a lunar side hustle for some time now: as well as starring in the film ‘Apollo 13’, he’s been involved in lower-key works, producing the HBO miniseries ‘From the Earth to the Moon’ and co-writing the IMAX film ‘Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D’. Staged in Kings Cross’s new, projection-based performance space Lightroom, ‘The Moonwalkers’ is essentially a documentary with bells on, a collaboration between Hanks and the venue, with a script co-written by the actor and Christopher Riley. It is, naturally, narrated by Hanks. Although it makes a point of looking forward to next year’s Artemis mission – the first manned flight to the moon since 1972 – ‘The Moonwalkers’ is a homage to both the Apollo landings and the wonder the Apollo landings instilled in the world.  Starting with JFK’s rousing ‘we choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard’ speech, it’s upbeat and America-centric, but well-judged. The main action and most spectacular visuals are projected on the room’s huge front wall, but the side walls cram in smaller details: the female mathematicians – many of them Black – who made the project possible are duly credited, which they certainly weren’t when I was young (or at the time of the landings,for that matter). There’s no contextualising talk

This King’s Cross Lightroom now has surely the weirdest repertoire of any venue in London, possibly the world. With an oeuvre based around massive megabit projection-based immersive films, its shows so far have been a David Hockney exhibition, a Tom Hanks-narrated film about the moon landings, a Vogue documentary and a visualiser for Coldplay’s upcoming album. It’s such a random collection of concepts that it’s hard to say there was or is anything ‘missing’ from the extremely esoteric selection of bases covered. But certainly, as the school summer holidays roll around it’s very welcome to see it add an overtly child-friendly show to its roster. Bar a short Coldplay break, Prehistoric Planet: Discovering Dinosaurs will play daily at Lightroom from now until at least the end of October half-term. It is, as you would imagine, a dinosaur documentary. And indeed, if the name rings a specific bell it’s because it’s culled from the David Attenborough-narrated Apple TV series of the same name. It’s quite the remix, though: Attenborough is out, and Damian Lewis is in, delivering a slightly melodramatic voiceover that lacks Sir David’s colossal gravitas but is, nonetheless, absolutely fine. Presumably Attenborough is absent because he’s very busy and very old, because while the film reuses several of the more spectacular setpieces from the TV series, it’s sufficiently different that repurposing the old narration would be a stretch. Any child with any degree of fondness for the mesozoic

It’s easy to roll your eyes at screen to musical adaptations, but when they work, they really work, as evidenced by 2005’s Billy Elliot the Musical. Arriving just five years after the Stephen Daldry directed, Lee Hall-written film about a young lad from County Durham who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer at the height of the miners’ strike, Daldry and Hall returned with the addition of songs from one Elton John. They made for somewhat unlikely bedfellows on paper, but in reality the move to musical was an unalloyed success, with the medium allowing Billy Elliot to seesaw ever more wildly between kitchen sink northeastern life and full on fantasy.  It was a stonking success, running at the Victoria Palace Theatre for over a decade, finally closing in 2016 when the theatre had a refurb in order to accommodate Hamilton. It didn’t do too shabbily over on Broadway either, running for four years and winning a pretty incredible 10 Tony Awards. Billy Elliot also, by the by, launched the career of a young man named Tom Holland, who worked his way up through the cast to the title role over the course of a couple of years spent in the show. It’s pretty good, basically, and now it’s heading back to London. Hamilton is still firmly ensconced at the Victoria Palace, so Billy Elliot will be heading to the Adelphi Theatre on the Strand, which is soon to be vacated by the departing Back to the Future the Musical. There’s a little while to wait, though: the show will tour to Sunderland, Manch

It’s been a decade since his death but David Bowie remains as great a presence in London as ever: the V&A’s David Bowie Centre opened to the public last year, it’s recently been announced that his childhood home in Bromley will be turned into a museum, and a lavish posthumous archive release campaign came to its head just a few months ago with final set I Can’t Give Everything Away. Lightroom in King’s Cross specialises in spectacular, specially made immersive films that are screened all over its floors and walls by its ultra high-powered projectors. Subjects so far include the work of David Hockney, Vogue magazine, and the two movies that currently remain in the repertoire: The Moonwalkers, a film about the Apollo landings by Tom Hanks, and Prehistoric Planet: Discovering Dinosaurs, which is pretty much as you’d imagine.  Frankly, Bowie is a no-brainer for similar treatment: his epochal sense of style and theatre, heavily documented life, and peerlessly banging catalogue lend themselves perfectly to an all(ish)-senses film.  And so it is: new immersive film David Bowie: You’re Not Alone will debut at the Lightroom from April. Photo: Justin Sutcliffe Featuring no narration other than Bowie’s own voice, we’re promised You’re Not Alone ‘is both a multimedia spectacle and an intimate and revealing self-portrait’, that will dip deep into the vaults of the Bowie Archive in New York to both bring us closer to the man and to showcase some of his greatest live performances. Like al

Internationally touring immersive exhibitions – offering teched-up, often fairly lurid accounts of key episodes in history – are becoming a bigger and bigger thing in London. In large part the astonishing recent volume of them is because there are two new-ish spaces in London – Dock X and ImmerseLDN – that are big enough to house shows that have been touring Europe and the US for a while but have lacked an obvious London home.  It was announced a couple of weeks ago that Dock X’s Titanic exhibition would be replaced by a new one one about the Vikings. And now it’s been announced that The Last Days of Pompeii at ImmerseLDN will be replaced by Cleopatra: The Experience. It does, of course, pertain to the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, whose name still rings through history thanks to extremely enthusiastic reports of her beauty, her interactions with the Roman Empire, and of course Shakespeare’s immortal play Antony and Cleopatra. Photo: ImmerseLDN In fact, while Cleo is the star, it’s perhaps best to view the show as a sort of sequel to last year’s Tutankhamun exhibition (which is by the same people) that generally focusses on the late days of Ancient Egypt (rather than the zenith shown in Tutankhamun). Spanning nine galleries and 3,000 square metres, the show is was developed in collaboration with historical curators and Egyptologists, and endorsed by British Cleopatra expert, Dr Chris Naunton.  Photo: ImmerseLDN It will trace the Alexander the Great-begat Ptolemic Dynasty – of

Disney’s latest megabudget musical spectacular has announced it’s leaving town a little more than a year after it opened: Hercules will close its doors on September 5, just after the school summer holidays are wrapped up. It’s got to be viewed as a small disappointment for Disney, whose stage version of The Lion King is the most successful musical in history and still going strong on the West End and Broadway. Hercules has lasted notably less time than Frozen, which preceded it in the gargantuan Theatre Royal Drury Lane.  That said, a year-and-a-bit at Drury Lane is nothing to sniff at and it’s so big that there’s rarely the expectation that a show will run and run there. Hercules didn’t do as well as Frozen, but it would be kind of nuts if it did given how much more popular the movie version of Frozen was than the relatively culty Hercules. And it’s hardly leaving in disarray, with its closing date over seven months away. Photo: Matt CrockettLuke Brady (Hercules) Speculation will inevitably turn to what replaces it in the West End’s biggest theatre. Disney has hogged Drury Lane in recent years and is having a tryout of its much anticipated Greatest Showman musical in Bristol this spring – rumours abound that it’ll be next up in Drury Lane if all goes well. But there are other possibilities, with several larger Broadway musicals hovering in the wings waiting for a suitably large London theatre to move into. There’s also the possibility that there may be another gap between

It’s been a while since Adrian Lester graced the London stage: the only thing he’s done this decade is the low key post-pandemic show Hymn, at the Almeida, back in 2021.  But after scoring great notices in the RSC’s Stratford-upon-Avon production of Edmond Rostand’s panache-tastic romance Cyrano de Bergerac, the screen star – still possibly best known for his starring role in Spooks – will return to the West End for the first time in a decade later this year when Simon Evans’ production heads to the Noël Coward Theatre. Co-starring the wonderful Susannah Fielding as Roxane, the true love of the gorgeously poetic but outwardly ugly Cyrano, the production is, by all accounts, a lot more traditional than Jamie Lloyd’s raptastic James McAvoy-starring production of a few years back. It’s a proper period production, and Lester’s Cyrano has a big old prosthetic nose. Nonetheless, it’s an updated version by Evans and the poet Debris Stevenson, and Stratford reviews praised its tough heart, lack of chintz, and terrific performance from Lester as a Cyrano gripped with self-loathing. For those unfamiliar with the play and story, it follows the romantic misadventures of the gifted but ugly French soldier Cyrano, who feels unable to woo the beautiful Roxane himself so instead opts for writing love letters to her on behalf of the pretty but dim Christian. Needless to say, this does not end particularly well. Cyrano de Bergerac is at the Noël Coward Theatre, Jun 13-Sep 5. Tickets are now on

Cameron Mackintosh’s bombastic Vietnam musical Miss Saigon was one of the last of the proper blockbuster ’80s musicals, running at the massive Theatre Drury Lane for a decade, a genuinely unthinkable feat today. Nicholas Hytner’s original production closed in 1999. But it turned out not to be the last chopper out of Saigon, as a tweaked version descended upon the Prince Edward Theatre in 2014 and stayed there for a couple of years. It also went some way to addressing the controversies around the show, which even in ‘a different era’ had received criticism for casting white actors with makeup and eye prosthetics in the leading role of half-Vietnamese/half-French hustler The Engineer. This was addressed in the 2014 casting (when Philippine-American actor Jon Jon Briones played the role). And while the musical – by Les Mis duo Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil – will probably never beat the rap that its tragic Vietnamese women are a bit of an orientalist cliche, it’s definitely moved out of cancellation territory. Plus the Vietnam War-set reimagining of the classic Madama Butterfly is a proper old school visual spectacular and the songs aren’t half bad either. And in 2027 we’ll be able to see it again, as Miss Saigon returns to the Prince Edward for what is being billed as a ‘strictly limited’ season of eight months only from next May. Theatre nerds may recall that Miss Saigon received its first truly new UK revival at the Sheffield Crucible a couple of years back but th

The Aldwych Theatre spent much of the last decade as home to Tina, the smash bio musical about Tina Turner. And this summer the theatre will see another new musical about a different American singing titan move in to replace it. Sinatra the Musical has possibly the most self-explanatory name in theatre history, but it case you can’t guess, it concerns crooner, actor and general icon Frank Sinatra. We’re long past the We Will Rock You/Mamma Mia! era of extrapolating silly new plots from a musician’s greatest hits, and so aside from said hits we get a biographical story set in 1942, at a pivotal time in Sinatra’s life and career. Having recently departed the popular Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Sinatra’s career seems to have hit the skids, as has his marriage to Nancy Sinatra thanks to an affair with rising Hollywood starlet Ava Gardner. But a New Year’s Eve concert at the Paramount Theatre in New York offers him the chance for a ‘comeback’ that will in truth be the launchpad for one of the greatest careers in popular music history. Helmed by top Broadway director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall and with a book by playwright Joe DiPietro – best known for the hit musical Memphis – Sinatra the Musical had tryouts in Birmingham in 2023 and has been made with the blessing of the Sinatra estate. This does mean that the odds of it saying anything particularly controversial about Ol’ Blue Eyes are pretty low, but the 1942 settings is certainly avoidant of Rat Pack cliches that have already

The Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre has just announced its 2026 season – or most of it, anyway. The caveat is that we actually already knew what the biggest show was already: OAT boss Drew McOnie’s production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats (Jul 25-Sep 12) – the first ever UK revival – was such a big deal that it was announced last year. It remains the centrepiece of the season, running in the ‘main’ height-of-summer slot that’s always taken by a big musical. But there’s plenty more besides, with the season getting underway in May with Joel Horwood’s new play Sherlock Holmes (May 2-Jun 6). No conceptual gimmicks here: it’s a stage thriller based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless detective. The exact plot is somewhat vague but sounds like an origin story of sorts, following and early career Sherlock and Watson as they struggle to move on from their first case until they suddenly find themselves embroiled in a deadly conspiracy. Sean Holmes directs a cast that will be headed by Joshua James as Sherlock. Next up, and as with his first season, McOnie will get back to his roots by programming a short run dance show, this year A Life In Four Seasons (Jun 11-14). The new work is created by OAT associate director Tinuke Craig and choreographed by Alexzandra Sarmiento, and is a dance piece about three friends negotiating love and loss in the city of London, set to an electric version of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. RECOMMENDED: The 10 best new London theatre openings in February 2026. Back

The National Theatre has been under new management since the autumn, when Indhu Rubasingham’s tenure as artistic director officially began. And she’s made a very decent start, but with the exception of the imminent production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses starring Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner, there’s maybe the sense that her first six months in charge have been a little light on the old celebrity front. Well that all changes today, as the NT announces the entirety of its 2026 programming.  The biggest name is Cate Blanchett, who returns to the National Theatre seven years after starring in the somewhat ‘difficult’ sadomasochism drama When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, which was staged in the smaller Dorfman Theatre. While Aussie auteur Benedict Andrews’ new mash up of Sophocles’ Electra and Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film classic Persona isn’t necessarily going to be a nakedly commercial romp, it probably will be by the standards of WWHSTEO, and it’ll be staged in the much bigger Lyttelton Theatre. Re-uniting Blanchett with her Tár co-star Nina Hoss, Electra/Persona doesn’t yet have finalised dates but we’re told it will commence its run in August. It’ll also have a fancy new score from Oscar-winner Hildur Guðnadóttir. Image: National TheatreSandra Oh Before that, the great Sandra Oh will make her UK stage debut in a Rubasingham-directed production of Molière’s timeless comedy The Misanthrope (Jun 16-Aug 1, Lyttelton Theatre), with the great playwright Martin Crim

We may still be locked in the depths of winter, but the sun will shine on us again one day, as evidenced by Shakespeare’s Globe announcing its 2026 outdoor summer season, which we bring you here as an exclusive. Without further ado (er, well actually there is some ado, but we’ll get to that later), the season starts – as is traditional – on April 23, AKA the date of Shakespeare’s birth and also death. First up then is Emily Lim’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which runs April 23 to August 29. Keen-eyed observers may note that there is currently a production of the same play running at the Globe’s indoor Sam Wanamaker theatre. To put it bluntly, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is big bucks at the box office, and there’s an endless stream of things you can do to it. The bleak, claustrophobic Wanamaker production seems likely to stand in contrast for what’s being billed as an uplifting and communal show from Lim, who cut her teeth making large scale community work for the National Theatre. Then it’s time for a somewhat unexpected Globe debut for Bertold Brecht, and one of the most influential playwrights to have ever lives bar Shakespeare himself. Elle While will direct Globe artistic director Michelle Terry in the title role of Mother Courage and Her Children (May 7-Jun 27), his great anti-war play about the eponymous hardbitten survivor, picking her way through a ruined world. That’s your lot for non-Shakespeare, as the season then ploughs into the much loved ultimate rom

In an insanely busy week for new season announcements (with the Globe, National Theatre and Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre all revealing programming)… here’s another! The Donmar Warehouse had already announced a single piece of 2026 programming, Anna Ziegler’s Evening All Afternoon, which will open next month but now artistic director Timothy Sheader has dropped the entire year of shows at the prestigious boutique Covent Garden theatre. Only the Christmas slot is now unoccupied. The Donmar’s programme is as eclectic as ever, with the opening play being Mass (Apr 18-Jun 6). US actor-writer-director Fran Kranz’s adaptation of his own hit indie film is about two sets of couples – the parents of the victim of a high school shooting, and the parents of the shooter – who attempt a painful reconciliation years after the event. Carrie Cracknell directs a top cast that includes Adeel Akhtar, Amari Bacchus, Monica Dolan, Paul Hilton, Lyndsey Marshal, Rochelle Rose and Susie Trayling. Photo: Helen Murray Next up, Felix Barrett of Punchdrunk fame will tackle Chloë Moss’s new play The Guilty (Jun 20-Aug 15). Like Barrett’s excellent current West End hit Paranormal Activity. Like Paranormal Activity, it’s a film adaptation, being based upon the the Dutch film Den Skyldige and its Jake Gyllenhaal-starring US remake The Guilty. The play will star Russell Tovey (pictured above) as a police officer with a troubled past who takes a shocking 999 call. Expect a Barrett production to be full to

There’s one name on everyone’s lips in Theatreland this month: Cynthia Erivo, who trades witchcraft for vampirism as she returns to the London stage for the first time in a decade with a one-woman take on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. That’s the splashiest show of the month, though if it sounds dauntingly hip a new Yes, Minister play starring Griff Rhys Jones and a reviewal of CS Lewis bio-drama Shadowlands starring Hugh Bonneville ought to offer more traditional delights. The other big news is a rare revival of the late Tom Stoppard’s masterpiece Arcadia – a generational event even without the poignant timing. Elsewhere the London stage is as eclectic as ever: the UK premiere of a play by the late Chadwick Boseman at Shakespeare’s Globe? Yes please! A drama about cavemen called The Shitheads? Why not? Read on to find out more. The best new London theatre openings in February 2026   Photo: Mark Seliger   1. Dracula Cynthia Erivo was a rising star of the British stage before the tiny Menier Chocolate Factory’s 2015 production of The Color Purple set off a chain of events that would make her one of the biggest actors on the planet. She hasn’t performed on said British stage since. But now she finally makes her return home in style: playing all 23 roles in a stage version of Bram Stoker’s vampire classic. It might sound a touch hubristic, but she’s in safe hands with Australian multimedia whizzkid director Kip Williams, who was responsible for the excellent Sarah Snook-starring Doria