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Bluey’s Big Play The Stage Show
Photograph: Courtesy Darren ThomasBluey’s Big Play The Stage Show

Christmas theatre shows for kids and families

Find festive entertainment for your little ones with our guide to 2023’s best Christmas theatre for kids and families

Andrzej Lukowski
Written by
Andrzej Lukowski
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Help make Christmas even more magical while they’re still little with one of London’s many festive theatre shows created with small people in mind.

We’ve divided our list into family-friendly Christmas shows – that is to say, shows suitable for children, but not necessarily aimed at them specifically – and shows that are directly aimed at a younger audience.

Please note that the great family-friendly British Christmas tradition of the pantomime is such a big thing at Christmas that we haven’t included any here – they have their own page (see link below).

RECOMMENDED: The best Christmas pantomimes in London.

Find more Christmas shows in London. 

Christmas shows for all the family

  • Theatre
  • Comedy
  • South Bank

This Richard Curtis-curated charity shindig sounds like a mini festive Comic Relief, live from the stage of the Royal Festival Hall. We’re promised a ‘witty and enchanting evening will capture all of the fun and laughter of Christmas through a treasure trove of entertainment’. Expect poems, carols, celebrities, schmaltz and very earnest bits – it’ll probably be overegged, but that is very much the nature of the season, and it’s all to a good cause. 

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  • Theatre
  • Outdoor theatres
  • South Bank

Hold on to your gingerbread lattes! This year’s outdoor Christmas show at the Globe – that is, it’s not in the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, it’s really outside – is a brand new verse adaptation of the classic fairytale ‘Hansel and Gretel’ courtesy of the great Simon Armitage. 

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  • Theatre
  • Comedy
  • Finsbury Park

As the title makes crystal clear, Steven Canny and John Nicholson’s play isn’t a straightforward adaptation of HG Wells’s visionary proto-sci-fi, but rather a comedy about a trio of idiots trying to make a stage adaptation of HG Wells’s visionary proto-sci-fi. Ages ten-plus.

  • Theatre
  • Musicals
  • South Bank

‘The Witches’ is a major adaptation of Roald Dahl’s beloved dark kids’ novel about a young boy who lives with his grandmother and stumbles across a conspiracy of villainous witches hoping to turn the world’s children into mice. For ages eight-plus.

Christmas shows for kids

  • Theatre
  • Children's
  • South Bank

One of the clear wins of modern parenthood is indoctrination in the ways of ‘Bluey’, the unreasonably funny Australian cartoon about the eponymous young dog and the bizarre ways that she and her family find to amuse themselves. It is, to be frank, exactly the sort of beloved show liable to get a crass stage treatment that misses all the quirky humour. But this touring production is, blessedly, based on an original story by the show’s creator Joe Blumm, plus original music by its composer Joff Bush. Not only that, but the voices are all pre-recorded by the show’s cast: so accepting you’re not terrified of puppets, it should all be golden.

It sounds like the ‘plot’ is a mash-up of new stuff and classic scenes from the show, but ‘Bluey’ is pretty much a show that you can’t go wrong with.

Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • Theatre
  • Children's
  • Hammersmith

This Lyric Christmas staple brings Raymond Briggs’s ‘Father Christmas’ to enchanting life. The author of ‘The Snowman’ is known for his beautiful depictions of the season – and this adaptation by theatre company Pins and Needles is equally charming.

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