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Top theatre shows in London

Our critics' pick of the must see plays this season

Our critics' tips for the best new plays and musicals that will be coming to London this spring. You can buy tickets to recommended theatre shows and review scores will be added once the shows have opened.

  • 1. Lift festival 2012

    See our complete guide to this year's London International Festival of Theatre, incorporating the much-anticipated 'Gatz' and four crossover pieces with the World Shakespeare Festival.

  • 2. London Road

    Jul 28-Sep 6, National Theatre, Olivier

    Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork's astonishing verbatim musical about the effect of the Ipswich Strangler killings upon the inhabitants of the titular road returns for a well deserved second season.

  • 3. Richard III

    Jul 14-Oct 13, Shakespeare's Globe

    Ex-Globe boss, 'Jerusalem' star and all-round theatre hero Mark Rylance returns to the theatre's stage to take on the much-monstered role of the man who (allegedly) killed the Princes in the Tower from 14th July.

  • 4. Crow

    Jun 18-Jul 7, Borough Hall

    In this impressive theatrical centrepiece to the London 2012 Festival, Handspring Puppet Company – they of the famous 'War Horse' creatures – adapt the late Ted Hughes's bleakly magnificent poetry cycle.

  • 5. Julius Caesar

    Aug 8-Sep 15, Noël Coward Theatre

    Shakespeare's historical drama is relocated to a post-colonial Africa in this RSC/World Shakespeare Festival production in which Paterson Joseph heads an all-black cast. New RSC boss Gregory Doran directs.

  • 6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

    Jul 24-Sep 8, National Theatre, Cottesloe

    Simon Stephens is the perfect choice to adapt Mark Haddon's enormously successful novel about an autistic boy who attempts to track down his neighbour's dog's killer.

  • 7. The Trojan War and Peace

    Free
    Jul 5-Aug 5, The Scoop

    Steam Industry Theatre returns to London's biggest and best free outdoor venue with a very free adaptation of Aeschylus's Orestia Trilogy.

  • 8. Birthday

    Jun 22-Aug 4, Royal Court Theatre

    Stephen Mangan and Lisa Dillon star in Joe Penhall's intriguingly outrageous-sounding comedy about a couple who adopt 'a whole new birthplan' when they try for a child.

  • 9. Democracy

    Jun 15-Jul 14, Old Vic

    Following on from 'Noises Off', the Old Vic plays host to another Michael Frayn play, Sheffield Theatres' acclaimed revival for his witty 2003 drama about murky coalition politics and the reunification of Europe.

  • 10. DruidMurphy

    Jun 20-30, Hampstead Theatre

    Druid Theatre performs three of Tom Murphy's plays on Irish emigration - 'Famine', 'A Whistle in the Dark' and 'Conversations On A Homecoming' - in an epic cycle as part of the London 2012 Festival.


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