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No other word to describe it: November 2025 is a blockbuster month for London theatre, with the two biggest shows of the year opening within it in the form of the musical adaptation of Paddington, and Conor McPherson’s stage adaptation of The Hunger Games. It’s such famous source material that there’s little more to be said beyond ‘if they’re not good, heads will roll’, so let’s move swiftly on to point out that in addition to that there are stonking big celebrity-heavy takes on Arthur Miller and Shakespeare coming to the West End.
And if you can see past the massive shows – well looky here, pantomime season gets underway in the second half of the month: oh yes it does!
The best new London theatre openings in November 2025
1. All My Sons
Ivo van Hove’s stupendous 2014 production of A View from the Bridge could reasonably be argued to be the greatest ever staging of Arthur Miller’s landmark play. Which certainly sets the bar high for his second stab at Miller on these shores, and we should probably manage expectations somewhat here. However, the omens are pretty damn good: All My Sons is an all-timer, and there’s a wonderful cast including Hayley Squires, Paapa Essiedu, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and American superstar Bryan Cranston as Joe Keller, the upright American businessman with questions about his past.
Wyndham’s Theatre, Nov 14-Mar 7 2026. Buy tickets here.
2. Paddington the Musical
Really big British musicals are few and far between these days – we prefer to let the Americans to do the heavy lifting, with the most recent homegrown smashes being scrappy indie musicals Six and Operation Mincemeat. But this is a damn big deal: super-producer Sonia Friedman has cobbled together an elite team headed by & Juliet director Luke Shepherd and McFly songwriter Tom Fletcher to create a big budget musical adaptation of the first Studiocanal movie. The Paddington franchise is serious stuff these days – expectations for this musical to be a smash are high, as well they should be.
Savoy Theatre, booking Nov 1-May 25 2026. Buy tickets here.
3.The Hunger Games: On Stage
Wading into this most blockbustery of months, here at last is London’s long awaited Hunger Games stage show, which feels like it’s been in the works for the best part of a decade. Directed by Matthew Dunster, it’s a straight-up adaptation of the first of Suzanne Collins’s bestselling YA novels. Clearly it’s going to take some imagination to translate Collins’s book about a post-apocalyptic future America in which teenagers are forced to participate in gladiatorial games. But superstar writer Conor McPherson is surely up to the challenge. It’s a relatively low-key cast, although a pre-recorded John Malkovich will pop up as President Coriolanus Snow.
Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre, booking now until Feb 14.
4. Othello
Over a quarter of a century ago, a young David Harewood was the first Black actor to play Shakespeare’s Othello at the National Theatre. And for 2025 he returns to the role in a new West End production from War Horse co-director Tom Morris. The prospect of seeing the older Harwood return to the role is exciting, and perhaps even more so the chance to see Toby Jones as the monstrous Iago, a villain whose subtleties he was born to tackle.
Theatre Royal Haymarket, now until Jan 17 2026. Buy tickets here.
5. End
David Eldridge scored the biggest hit of his career with 2017’s Beginning, a charming two-hander about two awkward middle youthers tentatively beginning a relationship. Follow up Middle – about a long-term relationship caught in a rut – was a knottier, more difficult play. And now we’re at the End. Publicity has been somewhat vague about how exactly it’s the end of Alfie and Julie’s relationship: Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves are a superlative cast, but neither is exactly ancient. But we’re expecting a few tears here.
National Theatre, Nov 13-Jan 17 2026. Buy tickets here.
6. Porn Play
Okay, it’s not like most of us were desperately waiting for a playwright to come along and write a show about a woman’s addiction to violent pornography. But now that Porn Play is here, it undeniably looks bloody promising. The play is from rising star Sophia Chetin-Leuner – whose NHS drama This Might Not Be It made waves at the Bush last year – but it’s the superlative cast and creatives that really seal the deal, with Ambika Mod as addicted young academic Ani, the mighty Josie Rourke directing her first show in ages, and there’s even the great Wayne McGregor on movement.
Royal Court Theatre, Nov 6-Dec 13.
7. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
A busy old month for David Eldridge: not only does his play End premiere at the National Theatre, but there’s a transfer for one he made earlier in the shape of Chichester hit The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Self-evidently an adaptation of John le Carré’s classic Cold War spy novel, it scored anything but cold notices when it first opened last year. Rory Keenan returns as disintegrating spy Alec Learnas, forced into one more job behind the Iron Curtain.
@sohoplace, Nov 17-Feb 21 2026. Buy tickets here.
8. Jack and the Beanstalk
It’s perhaps hard to credit it now, but by the end of November London theatre will be in full festive swing, with virtually all of our major pantomimes in preview, at the least. As is its wont, the Lyric Hammersmith panto is the first to open, and in recent years it’s established itself at not only the earliest but the best of the seasonal pack. Writer-director combo Sonia Jalaly and Nicolai la Barrie did a superb, spiky Aladdin last year and I have high hopes for their Jack and the Beanstalk, which relocates the bean-tastic action to a very strict Hammersmith public school.
Lyric Hammersmith, Nov 15-Jan 4 2026. Buy tickets here.
9. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Globe’s indoor winter season gets into full swing this month with an entirely unseasonal production of eternal crowd favourite A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A collaboration with the excellent touring company Headlong, it sounds like we’re in for a much darker, weirder take than usual in Holly Race Roughan and Naeem Hayat’s production, which plays up the chaotic nature of the machinations of the play’s fairy antagonists.
Shakespeare’s Globe, Nov 13-Jan 31 2026.
10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
This large scale immersive adaptation of Douglas Adams’s existential space comedy will take over the whole of Riverside Studios for the next couple of months. It’s a fascinating and ambitious prospect and certainly there are questions as to how well it’s liable to translate into this format. But it should at least be a laugh, and has solid credentials, being the baby of Arvind Ethan David, a former protégé of Adams himself, who has brought the late authors Dirk Gently books to stage and screen.
Riverside Studios, Nov 15-Feb 15 2026. Buy tickets here.
The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2025 and 2026.