The best theatre shows in London for 2025 not to miss

What is it? Big names Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman star as a pair of recovering alcoholics in the latest from caustic Northern Irish playwright David Ireland.

Where is it? @sohoplace. 

How much is it? £25-£95.

Why go? Ireland is a writer on the up, with his short, wildly un-PC dark comedies finding increasingly large audiences. I’s always a pleasure to see Freeman. But there’s no denying that ther stager return of Lowden – flush from the success of Slow Horses – is the biggest draw in an enticing show.

What is it? Arthur Miller’s allegorical masterpiece about the Salem witch trials becomes the first revival by a playwright other than Shakespeare to be staged at the Globe’s open air theatre.

Where is it? Shakespeare’s Globe. 

How much is it? £5-£80. 

Why go? Miller’s momentous play never dims in power or relevance. But there’s something very special about the idea of the Globe’s iconic space now finding room for the classics, and the sprawling, Shakespearean epic – sent just a few decades after the Bard’s death – should be the perfect starting point.

What is it? Drew McOnie’s first season in charge of the Open Air Theatre gets off with a bang via the UK premiere for smash UK musical Shucked.

Where is it? Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. 

How much is it? £15-£65.

Why book? Because by all accounts Robert Horn, Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s multi Tony-nominated 2022 musical comedy is funny as hell. It concerns a comically isolated rural farming community which must send representatives to the big city after their corn crop starts to fail. US director Jack O’Brien will restage his smash show with a new, UK cast. 

What is it? A transfer for last summer’s superb Open Air Theatre production of Bock & Stein’s classic play about life and change in the old shtetl.

Where is it? Barbican Centre. 

How much is it? £25-£165.

Why go? It’s a wonderful production from Jordan Fein, with astonishing design from Tom Scutt, and a perfect balance between the musical’s jollier beginnings and much darker ending.

What is it? The hottest Broadway show of the last couple of years – and most Tony nominated play ever – David Adjmi’s Stereophonic is a fictionalised account of the making of Fleetwood Mac’s landmark Rumours album.  

Where is it? Duke of York’s Theatre. 

How much is it? £25-£175.

Why go? It’s got to be worth it for the hype alone, with several of the Broadway cast transferring along with the show. The reviews have been escstatic, praising the delicately worked account of a band at a creative peak but personal low trying to struggle through the recording process, with original songs provided by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler.

What is it? It’s the return of the Nicholas Hytner’s sublime immersive 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, back six summers later with a new cast.

Where is it? Bridge Theatre.

How much is it? £19.50-£135.

Why book? The original production was simply a total joy – for those with ‘immersive’ tickets it was a big queer rave in the woods that you were invited to. There’s some fun textual innovation: Hytner has basically swapped the lines of fairy antagonists Oberon and Titania. But the main deal here are the good – nay, ecstatic – vibes.

What is it? Fourteen years on from its original NT premiere, Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork’s verbatim musical about the Suffolk community haunted by the so-called Ipswich Strangler returns as part of its director Rufus Norris’s final season running the theatre.

Where is it? National Theatre. 

How much is it? £20-£99.

Why go? London Road has to be seen – and heard – to be believed, as nothing even remotely like it has come along before or since. An ultimately deeply unsettling exploration of the nature of community via choral song, it’s beautiful and disturbing in equal measure, and almost certainly not what you are expecting.

What is it? Disney’s new stage musical, an adaptation of its Greek myth-themed 1997 film, with Luke Brady starring as the muscular demigod.

Where is it? Theatre Royal Drury Lane. 

How much is it? £29.50-£158.50.

Why go? The original film is obscure-ish by Disney standards, but much loved by those who know. And while it might seem like a slightly random choice of adaptation, word from Germany – where this production debuted – is very good.

What it it? Twenty-five years on, the entire original team of cast and creatives of Sarah Kane’s final play 4.48 Psychosis reunite to restage one the mostly bleakly powerful plays in British theatre history. 

Where is it? Royal Court Theatre. 

How much is it? £15-£30. Sold out but all Monday tickets go on sale on the morning of performance.

Why go? The play is a strange and haunting masterpiece and there’s undeniably a bragging rights element to bagging tickets to a show where demand will vastly outstrip supply. But there is definitely the hope that hugely talented director James Macdonald will find some new magic here and perhaps banish the shadow of Kane’s suicide, which hung heavy over the original production.

What is it? Unstoppable hit machine Jamie Lloyd’s third London opening in six months will be a reprise for his superb 2019 revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. And this time he’s cast a huge, huge star: Rachel Zegler will make her UK stage debut as Eva Perón.

Where is it? London Palladium. 

How much is it? £29-£175.

Why go? Co-written with Tim Rice, Evita was always Webber’s best musical, and Lloyd’s tough, witty take preserved its grit and romance while cutting out the twee stuff. Also there’s the small matter of Zegler: one of the hottest stars on the planet, this should be an explosive UK stage debut. 

What is it? The last Lyttelton theatre show to be programmed by Rufus Norris prior to his departure looks like a good one: following the Jodie Comer-fuelled West End smash Prima Facie, writer Susie Miller and director Justin Martin join forces with another big star for follow-up Inter Alia.

Where is it? National Theatre. 

How much is it? £25-£100.

Why go? Rosamund Pike has had an excellent few years on screen with the likes of Saltburn and The Wheel of Time. Now it’s long past time we get to see her on stage again: it will be  thrill to see her make her National Theatre debut to star as Jessica Parks, a maverick high court judge who precariously balances her work and her home life. 

What is it? Less than a year after making his Doctor Who-era stage return in the NT’s sublime The Importance of Being Earnest, Ncuti Gatwa is back at it again. He’ll star as the legendary playwright Christopher Marlowe opposite Edward Bluemel as William Shakespeare; the year is 1591 and in a paranoid Elizabethan England the two are collaborating on Henry VI together with a mix of flirtation and suspcion.

Where is it? Wyndham’s Theatre.

How much is it? From £25.

Why book? Earnest was great, but it was a big ensemble play – if you want to see Gatwa do some proper leading man stuff, this is your chance at last. And it’s staged by the RSC, ie it’ll be classy as hell.

Okay, it does sound a bit like slash fiction, penned by an American playwright barely known in this country. But it’s also an RSC production, directed by the company’s co-leader Daniel Evans – if that’s not a mark of quality assurance, then what is?

What is it? This classic 1947 musical romance from My Fair Lady writers Lerner & Loewe hasn’t been staged in the UK in over three decades. Now Drew McOnie directs it as the centrepiece to his first season in charge of the OAT.

Where is it? Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. 

How much is it? £15-£75.

Why go? The songs are sumptuous – hopefully top Scots playwright Rona Munro’s dramatically rewritten book has taken the cringe out of this story of two American pals who get lost in Scotland and discover a magical vanishing village. 

What is it? Katie Mitchell’s second play for the David Byrne-era Royal Court threatens makes last year’s non-linear poetry adaptation Bluets look positively commerical. A collaboration between the legendary avant-garde director, playwright Nina Segal and sound artist Melanie Wilson, Cow | Deer is a wordless work about a day in the life of a cow and a deer

Where is it? Royal Court Theatre.

How much is it? £15-£30.

Why book? Big in Europe, Katie Mitchell is probably the most revered experimental director in the world today. The cliche is that the British are too boring to get her and that she has to go abroad to find an audience – but this is truly as wild as theatre gets, and it’s coming to London only. Book because you’re a Mitchell-head or simply because you’re curious. Heck, book because you like cows.

What is it? Auteur director Simon Stone – who had a bit hit with Yerma starring Billie Piper – adapts Henrik Ibsen’s 1888 play about a woman named Ellida caught in a love triangle between her safe husband Edward and an ex-lover so dangerous he’s referred to only as The Stranger.

Where is it? Bridge Theatre.

How much is it? £25-£115.

Why go? Stone is undoubtedly a mercurial talent whose work tends be either genius or a bit of a mess. But the big news here is the casting: Alicia Vikander will make her professional stage debut as Ellida, while Andrew Lincoln will turn in his first proper theatre role since 2009 as Edward.

What is it? This is a bold opener for Indhu Rubasingham’s first season in charge at the National Theatre: first time playwright (though he’s got decent pedigree as an actor) Nima Taleghani offers up what sounds like a racously modern – and probably quite foul-mouthed – adaptation of Euripides’s shockingly violent Ancient Greek tragedy.

Where is it? National Theatre Olivier.

How much is it? TBC.

Why book? It’s a bit of a gamble – Taleghani is the first ever playwright to make his debut in the huge Olivier – but the audacity is presumably part of the point, plus there are some very reliable names to steady it. Rubasingham herself will direct the show, which has a cast including James McArdle, Clare Perkins and Ukweli Roach.

What is it? The first major London revival 16 years for Joe Orton’s breakthrough play. Tamzin Outhwaite and Daniel Cerqueira lead the cast as a pair of siblings who both fall for their charismatic lodger Mr Sloane, much to the misgivings of their frail father.

Where is it? Young Vic.

How much is it? £tbc.

Why go? It’s been far too long since London saw a major Orton production – not since a West End What the Butler Saw in 2012. Moreover, it’s the first play of new Young Vic artistic director Nadia Fall’s first season at the Vic, and she directs – despite running Stratford East for a decent spell she’s still an unknown quantity in certain ways (how leftfield or mainstream does she see the Vic?) – this is how we find out.

What is it? It’s been 15 years since the National Theatre staged Shakespeare’s masterpiece. But new NT boss Indhu Rubasingham isn’t messing around, and her deputy Robert Hastie’s production is her very first piece of programming in the Lyttelton. Hiran Abeysekera – best known for his Olivier-winning turn in the Hastie-directed Life of Pi – will take on the mantle of Shakespeare’s Great Dane.

Where is it? National Theatre Lyttelton.

How much is it? TBC.

Why book? Abeysekera is an unknown as a Shakespearean and the only advance vibes we’re getting from the production are ‘playful’. But it’s the greatest play ever written at the country’s most important theatre – if it’s not great everyone should hang their heads.

What is it? Marianne Elliott (War Horse, Curious Incident) directs Nick Payne’s first Royal Court play since his smash hit Constellations, as Nicola Walker stars as a woman trapped in a haze of grief in the seven years after her son goes missing.

Where is it? Royal Court Theatre.

How much is it? £15-£64.

Why book? Frankly the talent involved is ridiculous and it has all the makings of a Royal Court smash hit, in the same way that last year’s similarly starry Giant did. And if you think it sounds a bit conventional, worry not – apparently in Payne’s play all seven years of grief happen simultaneously, which sounds pretty mind-blowing.

What is it? This West End revival for Shakespeare’s great tragedy of race and jealousy won’t get a fraction of the attention that the 2025 Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal production received, but there’s every hope it’ll be the better Othello. It’s directed by Tom Morris, who co-directed War Horse and then went off to run the Bristol Old Vic – but now he’s back with a bang. 

Where is it? Theatre Royal Haymarket.

How much is it? £tbc.

Why go? It’s good to have Morris back, but of course the cast is the big draw. Toby Jones has the makings of a great Iago and US actor Caitlin FitzGerald should be a good Desdemona. But the big deal here is David Harewood as Othello, returning to the role as an older man having been the first Black actor to play the role at the National Theatre back in 1997.

What is it? Paddington supremacy continues. The last year has seen the beloved Peruvian bear expand his portfolio to encompass a third film, a permanent London immersive experience, and his own limited edition run of Time Out magazine. Next up: a full blown musical theatre show, Paddington the Musical.

Where is it? Savoy Theatre.

How much it it? TBC.

Why book? Yes, okay, Paddington is a tiny bit over-exposed these days. But super producer Sonia Friedman isn’t going to let a by-numbers, will-this-do cash-in go out under her watch. The crack creative team is headed by director Luke Sheppard – who smashed it with last year’s Starlight Express revival – and written by playwright Jessica Swale with songs by McFly mainstay and kids’ author Tom Fletcher. It’s clearly aimed at kids (aged six-plus), but it should be thoroughly magical for all.

What is it? After a decade of false starts, a stage adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s dystopian YA classic The Hunger Games is coming to London in October, opening at a brand new in-the-round theatre in Canary Wharf.

Where is it? Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre.

How much is it? £tbc – tickets on sale March 27.

Why book? We’re not going to lie: the odds are most audience members will be fans of the books. Unlike recent stage outings for Harry Potter, Stranger Things and the TBC Game of Thrones play, this isn’t a new story: it’s the first bool adapted for stage. But despair not, theatre nerds: it has a thrilling creative team led by top playwright Conor McPherson – you can probably expect a darker, grungier take than the films.

What is it? Belgian super director Ivo van Hove helms a cast led by Bryan Cranston, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Paapa Essiedu for Aruthur Miller’s monumental drama about Joe Keller, an American businessman who may have done something terrible.

Where is it? Wyndham’s Theatre.

How much is it? £25-£165.

Why book? That cast is to die for and Van Hove’s 2014 production of Miller’s A View from the Bridge is one of the greatest British theatre shows of the century – it’s fair to say hopes are very high.

What is it? US playwright Rajiv Joseph’s biggest hit, the Pulitzer-nominated Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo went on to transfer to Broadway in 2011, with the late, great Robin Williams in the role of the titular fast-talking tiger, which finds itself caught up in the chaos of post-Saddam, US-occupied Iraq.

Where is it? Young Vic.

How much is it? £tbc.

Why book? A UK production has been hoped for for yonks – mischievous director Omar Elerian feels like the perfect man to bring the tale to life in the post-Iraq era. He’s assembled an excellent cast, headed up by David Threlfall as the tiger and Arinzè Kene as US soldier Kev.

What is it? Remember that one-woman Picture of Dorian Gray starring Sarah Snook? Well the Australian team behind it have made a couple of other high-tech one-woman stage adaptations of classic Victorian horror novels. And in 2026 Dracula will come to London with a proper big name at its centre: Cynthia Erivo, in her first West End role in over a decade.

Where is it? Noël Coward Theatre.

How much is it? £tbc. Tickets go on sale later in 2025.

Why book? Wicked star Erivo is a generational talent looking to prove she's not just a pretty voice: playing 26 different roles she'll certainly flex her acting muscles. But the show isn't just an actor showing off on an empty stage: as with Dorian Gray, director Kip Williams’s show is a  dazzling technological edifice that should blow your mind in its own right.