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Classy revivals dominate April on the London stage. There are exciting new productions of old faves – notably starry takes on classics like Les Liaisons Dangereuses, A Doll’s House and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. There are old productions of old faves as Avenue Q returns to the West End and Inter Alia transfers. And then there’s whatever the hell the Wooster Group’s Nayatt School Redux is, as the legendary New York experimentalists make a very rare appearance on the London stage with a dissection of one of their classic ’70s works.
The best new London theatre shows opening in April 2026
1. Les Liaisons Dangereuses
An extended streak of celebrity-driven National Theatre productions – to be clear, not a bad thing – kicks off with this ravishing revival of Christpher Hampton’s classic adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ sexy epistolary novel about pervy French aristocrats. Lesley Manville will star as the manipulative Marquise de Merteuil, with Aidan Turner as the moral void Vicomte de Valmont and rising US screen star Monica Barbaro as the innocent Madame de Tourval. The great Marianne Elliott directs her first National Theatre show in years.
National Theatre, Lyttelton, until June 6. Buy tickets here.
2. A Doll’s House
Ibsen’s proto-feminist classic A Doll’s House gets staged a lot, with troubled heroine Nora one of the great theatre roles for women. Still, you can imagine this Almeida production will have a few surprises up its sleeve. It stars the always incandescent Romola Garai, one of the most intense actors out there. It’s directed by Jo Hill-Gibbins, an endlessly inventive and downright weird genius who has kind of drifted off into opera but has been lured back by this. And the new translation by Anya Reiss promises to drag the play fully into the online era.
Almeida Theatre, Mar 31-May 16.
3. Wooster Group: Nayatt School Redux
New York’s Wooster Group are one of the all time great experimental theatre companies, forging a visionary and surreal trail through 50 years of theatre, birthing such generational talents as Willem Dafoe and Spalding Gray along the way. UK appearances are rare as hen’s teeth, so this is very exciting: a restaging and multimedia dissection of the late Gray’s breakthrough 1978 hit, a monologue about a young man following sinister voices.
Coronet Theatre, Apr 17-25.
4. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Open-air theatre season begins this month, whether the weather is ready for it or not. The Globe throws open its outdoor doors for 2026 with the public’s favourite Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a comedy so popular that the theatre is staging it just a couple of months after its last, indoor production of the same closed. This should be a totally different vibe to its moody midwinter Dream, though: we’re promised an uplifting joyful production from director Emily Lim.
Shakespeare’s Globe, Apr 23-Aug 29. Buy tickets here.
5. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The first major London revival of the stage version of Ken Kesey’s classic countercultural novel in a couple of decades is directed by Clint Dyer and puts a fresh spin on the story of Randle McMurphy, a convicted prisoner who feigns insanity and finds himself locked into a hellish mental ward presided over by the monstrous Nurse Ratched. The inmates here are all played by Black actors, with Aaron Pierre as McMurphy and Giles Terera as Dale Harding. Meanwhile Rachael Stirling will play Ratched.
Old Vic, Apr 1-May 23. Buy tickets here.
6. Inter Alia
One of the National Theatre’s biggest hits of last year was Aussie playwright Suzie Miller’s latest morally fraught legal drama Inter Alia (the follow up to the Jodie Comer-starring Prima Facie). Featuring Rosamund Pike as a girlbossing high court judge whose world is turned upside down by accusations made against her beloved son, it was a sellout success at the NT and now transfers to the West End for a lap of triumph with the cast – notably Pike – unchanged.
Wyndham’s Theatre, until Jun 20. Buy tickets here.
7. Avenue Q
This smutty puppet parody of Sesame Street was one of the quintessential musical theatre smashes of the ’00s, running for five years in the West End (and over 15 in New York). Now Avenue Q is back in a 20th anniversary production that reunites the original creative team and puppets, plus a new human cast. Are the adventures of shambolic suburban New Yorkers Princeton, Kate Monster and Lucy the Slut still funny, having largely skipped the peak-woke era? We shall soon see.
Shaftesbury Theatre, until Aug 29. Buy tickets here.
8. Grace Pervades
Veteran playwright David Hare is having a great run time at the moment, with his old play Teeth ’n’ Smiles revived in one West End theatre and his new play Grace Pervades bagging a transfer from Bath – where it got great reviews last year – to another. Telling the story of the friendship between the great Victorian actors Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, it stars all-round stage and screen legend Ralph Fiennes as Irving, alongside Miranda Raison as Terry.
Haymarket Theatre Royal, Apr 23-Jul 11. Buy tickets here.
9. Copenhagen
Michael Frayn’s 1998 drama speculating about the enigmatic 1941 meeting in the Danish capital between physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg – and what its implications were for the development of the atomic bomb – was one of the quintessential British theatre shows of the ’90s and a massive success to boot, running for two years in the West End following its debut at the National Theatre. It was such a big hit it’s maybe not a shocker it took a while for it to get its first revival, but here it finally is, with West Wing star Richard Schiff as Bohr, Alex Kingston as his wife Margrete and Damien Molony as Heisenberg.
Hampstead Theatre, until May 2. Buy tickets here.
10. I Saw Satan at the 7-Eleven
Christopher Brett Bailey”s signature hit This Is How We Die was an extraordinary, improbable fusion of bug-eyed beat poetry and roaring post-rock that did the rounds on the international touring circuit for years afterwards. He’s been involved with plenty of other projects since, including his absurdist horror comedy novella I Saw Satan at the 7-Eleven, and it makes the leap into a stage version that he performs solo.
Soho Theatre, Apr 21-May 2.
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