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Standing at the Sky’s Edge, Gillian Lynne Theatre, 2024
Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

London musicals

Discover the best London musicals in the West End and beyond and book tickets

Andrzej Lukowski
Written by
Andrzej Lukowski
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There are a hell of a lot of musicals running in London at any given time, from decades-long classics like ‘Les Miserables 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 we round 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.

A-Z list of London and West End musicals

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • West End
  • Leicester Square

Brace yourself for a shock: ‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Broadway-munching musical is a big-hearted affair that pays note-perfect homage to the sounds and spirit of Broadway’s golden age.

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  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • Clerkenwell

It’s been a decade since Marvin Hamlisch’s groundbreaking 1975 musical about a group of dancers auditioning for an unnamed Broadway show was last seen in London. Now, however, it’s back as Nikolai Foster’s 2021 Leicester Curve production transfers to London.

 

  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • Bloomsbury

Co-written by Elton John, Shaina Taub and Kate Wetherhead, this musical adaptation of the beloved Meryl Streep film had a run in Chicago in the summer of 2022, but John deemed it unready and its original incarnation seems to have been shelved. So London is the test run for its all-new reincarnated debut production.

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  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • Regent’s Park

The final show of Timothy Sheader’s Open Air Theatre reign is – what else – a musical. Sheader won’t himself be directing this revival of Bock and Stein’s immortal musical following the life of Teyve, a Jewish milkman living in the shtetl in the early twentieth century. But you can be sure of a crowdpleaser. 

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  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • Tower Bridge

Nicolas Hytner’s Bridge production of the classic musical is a staggering achievement, a more or less flawless take on traditional terms that’s turned into something transcendent by the staging, from Hytner and designer Bunny Christie.

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  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • Shaftesbury Avenue

What a long, strange trip it’s been. Indie-folk musician Anaïs Mitchell’s musical retelling of the Orpheus story began life in the mid-’00s as a lo-fi song cycle; in short, thanks to what I can only describe as THEATRE MAGIC, ‘Hadestown’ is now a full-blown musical directed by the visionary Rachel Chavkin, its success as a show vastly outstripping that of the record.

Hamilton
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • VictoriaOpen run

Okay, let’s just get this out of the way. ‘Hamilton’ is stupendously good…

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