London musicals

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.

Written by US dramatist Sarah Ruhl with songs by the legendary new wave icon Elvis Costello, ‘A Face in the Crowd’ is the story of a charismatic drifter who is given a slot on a local radio station by an intrigued producer and ends up becoming a raging populist demagogue…

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.

'Matilda' must be making its creators, playwright Dennis Kelly and comedian-songsmith Tim Minchin, a very pair of proud parents.

I’ll tell you what’s fetch: Tina Fey’s writing…

‘MJ the Musical’ is the real deal, an estate-endorsed jukebox show that’s gone down a storm on Broadway…

‘Mrs Doubtfire’ is the latest in a seemingly endless post-pandemic string of musical takes on retro movies.Only this genuinely funny comedy musical doesn't feel like a cash grab, thanks to its twenty-first-century jokes, perfectly paced book, and silly voices galore.

Of all the Broadway musicals of the twenty-first century to have not come over to London, Dave Malloy’s ‘Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812’ feels like the great one that got away…

SplitLip’s delightful spoof WW2 musical has been heading inexorably for the West End for something like five years now…

‘Remember us from your GCSEs? It’s Henry VIII’s six wives – and they’ve back, bitch, to re-tell ‘her-story’ as a slick, sassy girl band. Think Euro-pop remixes of ‘Greensleeves’, Anne Boleyn spouting tweenage text-speak (‘everybody chill/it’s totes God’s will’), and K-Howard warbling #MeToo tales of gropey employers.