Andrzej Lukowski

Whether you’re in one of the UK’s diverse, underrated cities, our picture-perfect seaside towns or anywhere in between, there’s always a museum to educate, explain, enlighten. Far from just places to hide from grim weather, Britain’s greatest museums tell stories, explore histories and get you fascinated by stuff you’d never previously spared a thought for. Here at Time Out, we are, obviously, huge museum nerds. You’ll find countless of the cultural institutions peppered throughout our UK city guides, whether that’s a mighty, storeyed national behemoth or an adorably niche local exhibition space. Even better, plenty of those museums are totally free to visit (and they remain so, despite suggestions of change). But which British museums are most essential to visit this year? Which ones are having a moment, basking in a refurb, putting on the most tantalising exhibitions? We’ve rounded up the most unmissable, all chosen by Time Out UK editors who’ve recently visited them. Before we get stuck in, a quick note. The vast majority of the list below is outside London, and that’s intentional. If you’re looking for stuff in the capital, we have an excellent guide to the city’s museums here. We’ve also steered clear of conventional art galleries – watch out for a dedicated upcoming guide. RECOMMENDED: 📍 The UK’s top places to visit in 2026.🎨 The UK’s best new things to do in 2026.🎵 The best music festivals in the UK. At Time Out, all of our travel guides are written by writers who k

If any city in the world were oversaturated with hotels, it’d be Paris. So a list of the ‘best hotels in Paris’ is casting a pretty wide net. The city has over 1,600 hotels in total, ranging from tiny new boutiques to grand historic hotels charging €25,000 a night – and we wanted to make sure every kind of hotel was represented on this list: the luxurious, the downright cheap, and everything in between. Whatever your vibe in the City of Light, you’ll find a hotel for you here. Updated for 2026: We’ve added the brand-new Hotel Massé in Pigalle, the sickly-sweet Maison Saintonge and the downright iconic Le Pavillon de la Reine to our list for this year – plus some neighbourhood tips to help you choose which hotel is right for you. Enjoy.  In this guide What is the best area to stay in Paris? + − As will surprise no one, the ‘best’ area to stay in Paris is pretty subjective across its 20 arrondissements and 80 or so neighbourhoods. But we do have some pointers. If it’s your first time in the city, you’ll probably want to be as close to the city centre as possible to tick off those major attractions, so anywhere near the 1st arrondissement – Tuileries, the Marais, St-Germain – would be a good bet. If you’re on a budget, however, you’ll find that cheaper options are usually further out in the 15th, 18th, 19th, 20th – and even on the outskirts of the city. Don’t worry, you’ll still be in on the action – this is where the locals hang out, anyway. For the full rundown, here’s 

May 2026: There's a brand new Number 1, with Holy Carrot in Spitalfields taking the top spot thanks to some seriously creative vegetarian cookery. Other fresh additions include Guirong Wei’s The Wei in Fulham, Auguste and Cafe Kowloon in London Fields, the third Forza Wine, super fun Osteria Vibrato and latest branch of YeYe's Noodle & Dumpling (all three in Soho), perfect pasta at Burro in Covent Garden, pizza and Lambrusco at Bar Etna in Newington Green (and the nearby Golden Tooth gastropub), and Logma, a sensational supper club at a Haggerston cafe. Hungry yet? Every week, a frankly silly amount of brilliant new restaurants, cafés and street food joints arrive in London. Which makes whittling down a shortlist of the best newbies a serious challenge. But here it is. The 20 very best new restaurants in the capital, ranked in order of greatness and deliciousness. All of them have opened over the past 12 months and been visited by our hungry critics. So go forth and take inspo from this list, which is updated regularly. Check in often to find out what we really rate on the London restaurant scene. And look here for all the info about the best new openings in May 2026. London's best new restaurants at a glance: 🍝 Central: Osteria Vibrato, Soho 🍠 North: The Golden Tooth, Newington Green 🇹🇭 South: Kruk, Peckham 🍝 East: Holy Carrot, Spitalfields 🥗 West: The Wei, Fulham Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editoria

It’s not quite summer, but it’s the school holidays and it’s actually warm outside: it must be May half-term, aka the only half-term holiday to take place when the weather actually is nice. So of course ‘the park’ and maybe even ‘the seaside’ are on the agenda. But here’s the best of the rest London has to offer this hols, from a lavish new Natural History Museum prehistoric exhibition to the return of family theatre classic War Horse.  My name is Andrzej and I’m Time Out’s lead kids’ writer and also parent to two London-based children. As ever, the idea with this list is to highlight the best new, returning or last chance to see shows; London also has plenty of evergreen fun for children of all ages, quite a lot of which you can find in out list of the 50 best things to do with kids in London. When is May half-term this year?  This year, London’s May half-term officially falls between Monday May 25 and Friday May 29 (ie children will be off continuously between Saturday May 23 and Sunday June 1, and possibly a little longer as June 2 is a popular inset day).  Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this May half-term.

Hello, and welcome to the Time Out theatre reviews round up. From huge star vehicles and massive West End musical to hip fringe shows and more, this is a compliation of all the latest London reviews from the Time Out theatre team, which is me plus our team of freelance critics. December is the busiest time of year for London theatre – expect plenty of pantomime reviews and other seasonal fun but also a slew of major openings from across London’s many venues as the industry works itself to a frenzy before shutting down for Christmas. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2026. A-Z of West End shows.

Hello – I'm Time Out’s theatre editor and also a parent, something that has a lot of overlap in London, a city with three dedicated kids theatres and where pretty much every other theatre might stage a child-friendly show. London's kids theatre shows at a glance: Best musical: Matilda the Musical, Cambridge Theatre Best for teens: The Hunger Games: On Stage, Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre Biggest new show of last year: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre  Quirkiest show for tweens (and adults): Toto Kerblammo!, Unicorn Theatre  This round up focusses on the flagship shows at London’s kids theatres – that’s the Little Angel, the Unicorn and Polka – plus other major shows aimed at or suitable for youngsters. On the whole, pre-school and primary children are the age groups best served specifically, because secondary school aged teenagers can generally see adult theatre perfectly well (and will indeed often be made to do so!). So while the odd teen focussed show will make it in here, if you’re looking for something to do with teens why not consult our reviews page or what to book list. Our London kids’ theatre page normally contains information for all the main children’s shows running in London theatres this month and next month, and is broken down into three categories. Theatre for all the family is suitable for any age, including adults without children. Theatre for older children is specifically aimed at school-age children and teenagers. Theatre for babies, pre-school

For many people, musical theatre basically is theatre, and certainly there are a hell of a lot of musicals running in London at any given time, from decades-long classics like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera to short-run fringe obscurities, plus all manner of new shows launched every year hoping for long-running glory. London's best musicals at a glance: This year’s big Broadway transfer: Beetlejuice, Prince Edward Theatre. Best of the oldies: Les Miserables, Sondheim Theatre Best for families: Matilda the Musical, Cambridge Theatre The new big thing: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre  Funniest musical: Operation Mincemeat, Fortune Theatre Here Time Out rounds up every West End musical currently running or coming soon, plus fringe and off-West End shows that we’ve reviewed – all presented in fabulous alphabetical order. SEE ALSO: How to get cheap and last-minute theatre tickets in London.

This rolling list is constantly updated to share the best of what’s coming up and currently booking: these choices aren’t the be-all and end-all of great London theatre in 2026, but they are, as a rule, the biggest and splashiest shows coming up, alongside intriguing looking smaller projects.   London's best shows to book for at a glance: Best musical: Beetlejuice, Prince Edward Theatre Best Shakespeare play: Romeo & Juliet, Harold Pinter Theatre Best celebrity show: The Lives of Others, Adelphi Theatre Best blast from the past: Cats, Open Air Theatre Best for teens: John Proctor is the Villain, Wynham’s Theatre. London’s theatre scene is the most exciting in the world: perfectly balanced between the glossy musical theatre of Broadway and the experimentalism of Europe, it’s flavoured by the British preference for new writing and love of William Shakespeare, but there really is something for everyone. It’s also beweilderingly big: between the showtune-centric West End and the constant pipeline of new writing from the subsidised sector – plus the Wild West of the fringe – there’s well over 100 theatres and over venues playing host to everything from classic revivals to cutting-edge immersive work. This is my attempt to make sense of all that for you. These are shows worth booking for, pronto, both to avoid sellouts but to get the cheaper tickets that initially go on sale for most shows but tend to be snapped up months before they actually open. Please note that the prices qu

Hello! I'm Andrzej, the theatre editor of Time Out London, and me and my freelancers review a heck of a lot of theatre. This page is an attempt to distil the shows that are on right now into something like a best of the best based upon our actual reviews, as opposed to my predictions, which determine our longer range what to book for list. London's critics’ choice shows to book for at a glance: Best musical: Hamilton, Victoria Palace Theatre Best star casting: Romeo & Juliet, Harold Pinter Theatre Best for kids: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre Best old classic: Les Miserables, Sondheim Theatre  Best for a scare: Paranormal Activity, Ambassadors Theatre It isn’t a scientific process, and you’ll definitely see shows that got four stars above ones that got five – this is generally because the five star show is probably going to be on for years to come (hello, Hamilton) and I'm trying to draw your attention to one that’s only running for a couple more weeks. Or sometimes, we just like to shake things up a bit. It’s also deliberately light on the longer-running West End hits simply because I don’t think you need to know what I think about Les Mis before you book it (it’s fine!). So please enjoy the best shows in London, as recommended by us, having actually seen them.

So you’d like to go to the Edinburgh Fringe but you haven’t booked anywhere to stay yet – is it a practical option on a budget? Unfortunately for complicated-ish reasons there is a severe lack of short-term accommodation in Edinburgh during the Fringe, certainly compared with what there was ten years ago, and the odds of you getting an incredible bargain on a gorgeous apartment on the Royal Mile are somewhere close to nil. On the plus side, Oasis aren’t playing a sold out run of stadium shows during this year’s festival, so that will take a little pressume off the city’s accomodation stock in 2026.However, don’t despair – here are five tips for sorting yourself out. 1. Throw (some) money at the problem To state the obvious, there are always properties available, and yes, if you spend enough you’ll be okay. An unscientific survey of Airbnb in May 2026 suggests if you can stretch to about £200 a night you should be able to get a fairly basic single or double bedroom at peak Fringe – far, far higher than a decade ago but maybe it’s just easier to accept it’s expensive and concentrate on enjoying yourself. If you can divide a bedroom between two or a whol apartment between several you might even get a decent deal. Plus if you’re feeling brave, some of the more absurdly priced Aibnbs might drop their prices late, though don’t count on it. 2. Do it like a student Part of the problem with short-term Fringe accommodation is that – long story short – a change in Scottish tenancy law

There’s perhaps nothing more magical than seeing a play or musical in the open air, and London is absolutely the city for it. In defiance of the weather gods, our outdoor theatre season now stretches from March to late October: we’re are just that tough. Or at least, optimistic about the weather. Substantially it revolves around a few key theatres, notably Shakespeare’s Globe – open March to October and generally boasting a cheeky outdoor Christmas production – and the delightful Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, which is open late spring to the very end of summer. The former specialises in Shakespeare plays, while the latter has a musical theatre focus. Although the start of the year open air theatre is largely absent for obvious reasons, the season does get underway relatively early, especially at the Globe, where a truncated Shakespeare play – this year Romeo & Juliet – plays for schools and brave civilians from early March. Not sure what you'll need for an open-air theatre trip? Then don’t miss our guide to practical open-air theatre info.  If you’re interested in taking in some outdoor cinema this summer, head to our dedicated page.

What is immersive theatre? A glib buzzword? A specific description of a specific type of theatre? A phrase that has become so diluted that it’s lost all meaning? Whether you call it immersive, interactive or site-specific, London is bursting with plays and experiences which welcome you into a real-life adventure that you can wander around and play the hero in. London's best immersive shows at a glance: Best for dinner theatre: Faulty Towers the Dining Experience, President Hotel Best for Trekkies: Bridge Command, Vauxhall Arches Best for music lovers: Mamma Mia! The Party, The O2 Coolest: Lander 23, Carriageworks I’m Andrzej Łukowski, Time Out’s theatre editor, and I have run the immersive gamut, from a show where I had to take my clothes off in a darkened shipping container, to successfully bagging tickets to the six-hour Punchdrunk odyssey almost nobody saw, to a lot of theatre productions where the set goes into the audience a bit and apparently that’s immersive. This page has been around for a while now and gone through various schools of thought, but the one we’ve settled on for now is that the main list compiles every major show in London that could reasonably be described as ‘immersive theatre’, while the bottom list compiles a few of our favouite immersive shows thet you probably wouldn’t describe as theatre though it is, naturally a blurry line. Whatever the case you can mostly only really decide what most of these shows are if you go and do them… prepare to immer

Peter Shaffer wrote three absolutely god-tier plays: Equus (which you can see in London right now), Amadeus (which you can see in London next year) and The Royal Hunt of the Sun (which teeters on being impossible to stage). His other works tend to be relatively overshadowed, but probably the most fondly remembered of them is 1965’s Black Comedy, a throwaway one-act drawing room farce designed with astoundingly virtuosic precision, like a gaudy Christmas cracker that turns out to have a Fabergé egg inside. The plot could scarcely be more boilerplate English farce if it tried (and to be fair Shaffer was trying for exactly that). In it, skint artist Brindsley Miller (Joe Bannister) tries to play off his ex, his fiancé, his neighbours, his fiancé’s dad and a guy from the electricity board as he frantically attempts to get his flat ready to impress a visiting German millionaire in the middle of a power cut. Shaffer’s audacious innovation – you might call it a gimmick, albeit a bloody good one – is to reverse the lighting cues, so that when the lights in Brindsley’s flat are on, we’re plunged into total darkness, and when the lights are off, the theatre is brightly lit but the characters in the play can’t see anything. If it was significantly longer, it might run out of steam. But at one 90-minute act it’s damn near immaculate. It’s simply very funny to see a panicked Bridgsley attempt to drastically rearrange his flat in pitch darkness.  Of course there’s a limited amount a new pr

This review is from 2012 and War Horse's last West End run.  The National Theatre's 'War Horse' has become ubiquitous. The toast of the West End and Broadway, as I write this it's sold out at the New London Theatre for the next two months – by contrast, you can book to see 'Matilda' next week. Its enormous success has negated the impact of Arts Council funding cuts on the NT, to the extent that the show has started to be singled out by some commentators as an example of 'safe' post-credit crunch programming. And, of course, there's the Steven Spielberg film, a curious affair sparked by the director's genuine love of the play, in which he gives Michael Morpurgo's 1982 a lavish screen treatment that has everything bar the one thing that made the play so special in the first place. That is, of course, Handspring's astonishing life-size puppets. Skeletally modernist in form but utterly, magically alive thanks to their talented army of puppeteers and Toby Sedgwick's phenomenal choreography, they are the true stars of Tom Morris and Marianne Elliott's production. Without them, Morpurgo's tale of how Devon-dwelling teen Albert Narracott signed up to throw himself into the meat grinder of World War I – in order to track down his beloved horse Joey – would be a likeable, humane, slightly formulaic introduction to the catastrophe of the war. With them, it is something different entirely, a virtuoso spectacle that combines grit and charm in equal measure. Joey is a multifaceted delight

I basically preface my review of the Natural History Museum’s big annual temporary exhibition the same way every year. Because there’s a dinosaur in the room that needs to be discussed: the NHM’s enjoyable but increasingly creaky dinosaur gallery. It’s charming and fun for fledgling dino-lovers, but it’s cramped, aging and far from cutting-edge, and we’re promised a major revamp by the NHM’s 150th birthday in 2031. For now, the museum’s temporary exhibitions take up the slack in terms of the wow factor - techier, more interactive and above all just spaced out a lot more nicely. Not every year is about dinosaurs - the last to really focus on them was 2023’s Titananosaur exhibition - though they often work them in on some level anyway (see 2024’s Birds: Brilliant & Bizarre). Here’s a doozy, though: Jurassic Oceans of course concerns itself with the various iconic sea creatures of the Mesozoic era - ‘Monsters of the Deep’ as its subtitle puts it. And it’s a delight. You learn plenty, like how the hell ammonites worked or why ichthyosaurs have such weird-looking eye sockets. There’s a series of increasingly impressive fossils, building to the impressive final full plesiosaur fossil. And unless you’re a real aqua-paleo nerd, you’ll likely come across a dozen or more species you’ve never heard of before, from sundry fish to various species of marine crocodile to the gargantuan whale shark-aline fish leedsichthys. Really, though, it’s just a nice slick experience. It doesn’t have as

Although I would struggle to actually recommend this one-man zombie apocalypse rock musical from Korea, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a good time at it.  The Last Man - by Jishiuk Kim and Seungyeon Kwon - isn’t really a case of being so bad it’s good. It’s more that it’s quite good at a load of contradictory things, that get in the way of each other: I never worked out whether the whole thing was a massive joke or not, and I suspect the writers were unsure too. With its widdly ‘80s rock guitars (complimentary) and comical-whatever-the-actual-intent-was lyrics (there is a song that literally has the chorus refrain ‘THE MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIIIIIEHS’), it often has an endearing Trey Parker/Matt Stone-esque air of faux machismo to it. Whether this is intended to amuse, I can’t quite say; I think it is, but it doesn’t quite commit to the bit.  Lex Lee is a young-ish resident of Seoul, whose fondness for zombie apocalypse films has allowed him to spot the telltale early signs of an actual zombie apocalypse. Hence he’s built himself a bunker, which he’s stocked up a six months supply of food and a fancy climate control system. (NB the role is alternated with actress Nabi Brown, who presumably puts a different spin on it). Much of the first half of the play consists of The Survivor making video diary entries for future generations in which he muses on the apocalypse, the events leading up to it, and a childhood he seems to have a complicated relationship with - as embodied by an

Care – stylised as CARE – is acclaimed writer-director Alexander Zeldin getting back to his roots. Kind of. After the cartoonishly overwrought stab at Greek tragedy that was The Other Place, his newest is a naturalistic yarn about an English retirement home, that harks back to his breakthrough Inequalities trilogy of plays about the fraying social contract in austerity Britain. It’s not quite the same, though, because while contemporary stresses on the British care system are alluded to, they’re not really the point here. Despite an aesthetic that teeters on kitchen sink, Zeldin is one of the few Brit directors whose career has really taken off in Europe, and Care in fact began life in France. It’s been reworked, but it’s ultimately a play about a more universal care home experience. That experience centres on Linda Bassett’s Joan, a grandmother who has been placed in the show’s unnamed home for what – as she sees it – is a couple of weeks to recuperate from a nasty fall. She has a family: a daughter, Lynn (Rosie Cavaliero) and two grandsons, Laurie (William Lawlor) and Robbie (shared by Charlie Webb and Ethan Mahony), but they’re clearly having a tough time following the death of Lynn’s husband. So Joan is checking into a home for a bit. Or so she thinks.   It’s an extraordinary performance from Bassett. I don’t normally get too dewy-eyed about the emotional cost of acting, but it must surely be an unsettling thing to be an older actor when so much of the best work available

Obviously Peter Shaffer’s landmark 1973 play Equus has dated in some ways. It has gone from a story set ‘now’ to a ‘70s period drama. Its views on psychiatry are, at the very least, simplistic, speaking of an era where the concept was novel. But my god: it’s hard to see that mainstream British theatre ever getting more extreme – certainly psychologically – than Shaffer’s opus. It’s a seethingly sexual, deeply unsettling interrogation of the Apollonian versus the Dionysian that centres on Alan Strang, a young man who – as the play begins – has just brutally blinded six horses. But why? And what’s to be done? In some way Shaffer’s great achievement is simply in going there. Inspired by a real life incident (that involved the blinding of 26 horses), if the author was any less earnest in the way he ploughs into Alan’s unimaginably disturbing actions and psychology, it wouldn’t work. And indeed the naughty tittering elicited from the tabloid press when Daniel Radcliffe took on the role of Alan almost 20 years ago says it all - this is difficult stuff to talk about sincerely.   Interestingly, though, 2007’s D-Rad-starring revival has ushered in a modest renaissance for the play, which wasn’t touched for over 30 years after its original NT run ended in 1975 but has now been done a fair bit, with an ultra-modern 2019 version at Stratford East, and now this from the Menier. Historically Equus has been about scale and spectacle, with the six actor-dancers playing the horses typically w

There’s one crucial difference between the new Museum of Illusions and the already open Twist Museum and Paradox Museum: it’s on Tottenham Court Road, while they are (respectively) on Oxford Street and Brompton Road. Beyond that it has to be said that there’s relatively little in it: all three offer a fairly similar experience of a series of interactive displays and large scale classic optical illusions that will make you give a little ‘huh’; they’re diverting for all ages, but particularly for children; you’ll get some neat photos out of them, be that via classic forced perfective trick – you’d better believe there’s a Beuchet chair – or just the good old infinity room. Plus loads more diverting fun: a giant kaleidoscope! A mirror trick that makes it looks like you’re climbing the front of 10 Downing Street! A table in which you’ll come face to face with eight reflections of yourself, all seemingly joining you at the table. A vortex tunnel! An infinity tunnel! Basically, every reflection-based trick in the book you can think of (though it has to be said, I could think of most of them because I’d seen them at the other museums). I don’t want to be aggressively cynical about the Museum of Illusions because my kids had fun, and I did get some good photos. And, as much as anything, as a global chain it well predates its London rivals: the first branch opened in Zagreb in 2015, and now there are over 70, in 28 countries (the London location being the second in the UK after Manche

This hugely enjoyable new Sherlock Holmes adventure from playwright Joel Horwood gives you all you could possibly want from The Great Detective: the catchphrases, the wild connect-the-dots genius, the Victoriana, the post-Cumberbatch notion that the guy is a bit of an autistic weirdo but cranked up to 10 and given a flamboyant drug habit. It’s also directed marvellously by Sean Holmes, who turns in a meaty, satisfying romp that has plenty of enjoyably weird grit in its wheels. The point that may conceivably prove controversial is that it’s very much a post-colonial story, with Horwood fascinated by the status of Victorian London as the seat of the Empire, and how it exercised power around the world. It’s a subject the British can get pretty weird about – but rather than agit prop raving, Horwood offers a sense of how strange the connection between a foggy London and a wider world dominated by it is. He is intrigued with the idea of Imperial power – as exemplified by Holmes’ brother Mycroft (Patrick Warner) – as a confidence trick rather than an exertion of military force. It might offend the sort of person who won’t allow any critique of Britain’s past, but I think it’s neat to see a story that offers insight into what it was like living in London at the zenith of Victorian power, long before the nation’s ‘plucky underdog’ makeover. As the story begins, Joshua James’s youthful, eccentric Holmes and Jyuddah Jaymes’ affable Afghan war vet Watson have recently made their names w

Krapp’s Last Tape is one of those formally groundbreaking, emotionally devastating Samuel Beckett plays that is nonetheless so locked into being staged the same way every time – thanks to notoriously rigid Beckett estate – that it can be tricky to comment on a new production. Even if it is one that’s directed by, stars and is designed by Gary Oldman, his first stage performance since the mid-’80s.  Don’t panic: I will comment on it. But it is unfortunately a lot easier to pass judgement on Godot’s To-Do List, the new 20-minute minute short by 19-year-old Leo Simpe-Asante that is paired with Oldman's performance (a nod to the fact KLT itself debuted at the Royal Court in 1957 as a ‘curtain raiser’ for Beckett’s Endgame). Godot’s To-Do List is a lively and irreverent response to Waiting for Godot. It’s also not vey Beckettian. Or good. Nobody needs me to go off on a young writer at length. But to be brief, the set up sees Godot (Shakeel Haakim) detained in a room where a disembodied voice demands he complete a series of trivial tasks before he is allowed to go and meet his friends (anyone who knows Godot will be aware who they are). It just about works as a rejoinder thematically, although Aneesha Srivivasan’s production entirely ducks even an allusion to the fact Beckett’s Godot is clearly meant to be God. But structurally, tonally etc it has not a thing to say to Beckett, and it’s hard to fathom any particular reason for this pairing beyond ‘nice opportunity for a young perso

Dave Harris’ Tender is, I suppose, a drama about how hard it is to be a man. But don’t worry, you can put the pepper spray away: we are so far away from incel territory here that we might as well be talking about a different species. The US playwright’s latest is directed by Matthew Xia, the Brit director who did such a spectacularly good job directing Harris’ batshit time-travelling drama Tambo & Bones that the posters for Tender actively bill this as a reunion between the two. It is not as mad as Tambo & Bones, because Tambo & Bones ended in a dystopian race-war future filled with silly robots and Tender doesn’t. But it does, again, speak to the sheer scope of Harris’ imagination, and Xia’s ability to articulate his out-there ideas on a modest budget. The setting is a New Jersey strip club in which the female clientele and the male strippers are allowed to engage in actual sex acts due to a convoluted legal loophole identified some years ago by the club’s unseen owner, Margie. A team of three guys – Trae (Kwame Odoom), Geoff (Dex Lee), and Donny (Darren Bennett) – have been performing the same routine (which involves teddy bear costumes) for years now.  But far from being growling studs, revelling in their respective masculinities, the men are a mess: the play begins with a long monologue from Trae – half dressed as a bear – who reflects mournfully, at length and with reference to the cult Manga Sailor Moon on his lack of pleasure from sex these days. More pressingly, a new

Virginia Woolf’s towering 1931 novel The Waves doesn’t offer Joycean levels of formal complexity. Nonetheless, its haunting modernist blend of poetry and novel that sketches out the lives of six – or perhaps seven – friends is not a simple read. But it goes down surprisingly smoothly in this stage adaptation by Flora Wilson Brown. And that’s all to the good: The Waves is so purely literary that I don’t think an entirely equivalent stage version is possible. But Brown’s text and Julia Levai’s deft, efficient production conventionalise it with love and brisk purpose. Part of that is simply down to having a superb cast, who inject warmth and feeling into Woolf’s lengthy poetic soliloquies, whose mannered language holds the characters at an intentional remove on the page. We do get plenty of Woolf’s original poetry. But Brown is fearless about chopping and changing: she has added lashings of dialogue (the novel is essentially one character talking after another), and has rearranged things to make the autobiographical character of Rhoda the effective main narrator. This is a clever move for a number of reasons, the most pragmatic of which is that it means the production gets the most value out of its Rhoda, the excellent Ria Zmitrowicz, in her first stage performance in years. She’s wonderful as an introspective, panic-attack prone outsider, happy to hover quietly around the margins of her group of friends, some of whom – gorgeous good-time socialite Jinny (Syakira Moeladi) and su

‘Can Rebecca Lucy Taylor act?’ is I guess the big question here.  Well, I don’t think there’s any evidence from the pop star’s straight-up play debut (she previously co-starred in Cabaret) that the artist also known as Self Esteem is a hugely versatile character actor. But: the answer is ‘yes’. The theatrical, theatre-literate singer potently channels what feels like a lot of personal stuff into the role of Maggie Frisby – a minor rock singer, angry, amused and very drunk as her band disintegrates at a 1969 Oxford student ball. And I think if you’re a proper hardcore Self Esteem fan you’ll probably see David Hare’s 1975 play Teeth ’n’ Smiles as a means to an end, a vehicle to fire Taylor up as she pours her heart and soul and cynicism at the music industry into the role of Maggie, combusting spectacularly – and at one point, almost literally – at the tail-end of the ’60s.  The trouble is the play has not aged brilliantly, a fact that, to his credit, Hare has acknowledged in the past (though he’s been supportive of this revival).  He was right! Teeth ‘n’ Smiles was inspired by Hare’s observations of a washed up Manfred Mann at the playwright’s own university ball. Which is interesting. But in 2026 it’s astonishing how unclear it is what point Hare is really trying to make.  I think it’s a passage of time thing. In 1975, this slightly absurdist drama about an addled rock band limping on through a catastrophic final show was in and of itself powerful commentary on the end of a ‘

Like many enduring facets of modern life, Shedinburgh began as a pandemic stopgap: a series of live streamed performances in an actual shed, staged the summer of 2020 when the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was cancelled. It was the brainchild of Francesca Moody, the Fringe producer with the golden touch, who has masterminded the success of such notable recent festival triumphs as Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer, and last year’s Weathergirl. Stuff she’s involved with has a habit of becoming an enduring success, and that goes for Shedinburgh. Last year, it was brought back in a limited way, offering performers who might not have been able to make it to the Fringe – a full three-week run is notoriously emotionally and financially challenging – a properly remunerated opportunity to do something a little special (in a shed). And this year it’s back with a greatly expanded line-up that will see it have a full run at the Fringe and then – in October – London’s Young Vic. The line-up is a pretty damn awesome who’s who of leftfield British performing talent, including the return of legendary live art producers Forest Fringe, a staple of the festival’s ’00s years. Frankly there is so much on – because each performer only does a show or two over three weeks – that it’s difficult to really pull out highlights, but let’s just say there’s a lot happening, from the revival of classic Fringe hits of yore like Bryony Kimmings’ hilarious breakthrough show Sex Idiot, to

Big new theatre openings in London pretty much come to a grinding halt during the summer holidays, so all the big shows of the season tend to open more or less now. Which is great news for us as we head into June with a roster of the 10 best London theatre openings for June so packed that a pedant might say it’s actually the 12 best London theatre openings for June. An absolute blinder of a summer season at the National Theatre leads the way, with three shows that really do offer something for everyone; elsewhere it's a gloriously varied month, from a massive new Frank Sinatra jukebox musical to a mouthwatering – and topical – Iranian horror story. RECOMMENDED: The 8 best open air theatre shows to see in London in 2026. The best new London theatre openings in June 2026 Image: National TheatreSandra Oh 1. War Horse/The Misanthrope/Pride Yes, yes, it’s three shows not one, but it’s such an absurdly stacked month for the NT that it seems unfair not to pick all of them, especially as they cover such different bases. In the Olivier the mighty War Horse canters back into the theatre it was first staged in back in the ’00s, bringing its extraordinary spectacle to a new generation. The Lyttelton boasts The Misanthrope, an exciting modern update of Molière’s classic starring the mighty Sandra Oh (pictured) in her UK stage debut. And over in the Dorfman there’s Pride, in which the team behind the beloved queer 2014 Britflick turn it into a new musical – the start of a new NT initiati

★★★ I suppose the first thing to say about Beetlejuice the Musical is that it’s not necessarily one for fans of the Tim Burton film. Which doesn’t have to be a bad thing. A lazy criticism levelled at screen-to-stage adaptations is that they’re just works of formulaic transposition. But you only have to look at The Lion King – aka the highest-grossing musical in history – to see that’s blatantly not always the case. Aussie singer-songwriter Eddie Perfect’s all-singing take on the 1988 Burton classic is very definitely a retelling, taking most of the core elements of the supernatural comedy and positioning them together in a very different, very ’20s musical theatre way. And for the sizeable number of audience members who turn up to the Prince Edward Theatre in fancy dress, that is enough. Alex Timbers’ production was a big Broadway hit and has a cast recording that has clearly begat legions of London fans. Many of them, I’m sure, regard the musical and its songs as the key text and have never even seen the film. Alas, I am cursed with such knowledge, and despite my desire to be fair about the myriad alterations I can only really write this review from the POV of ‘grumpy old man who didn’t like how they changed things’. To put it another way, I loved Burton’s surreal vision of a preposterously bureaucratic afterlife, and was dismayed that the whole concept is here reduced to a virtual Easter egg. As much as anything, it just feels a bit unambitious not to tackle it. Ditto the l

For 10 years now the London Transport Museum has been hosting tours into some of our city’s most impressive abandoned underground structures via its Hidden London programme. Among the most notably tours are its End of the Line trips to Aldwych tube station, which was finally shuttered in 1994 after 30 years of reduced service. Although the current tours recently allowed anyone aged 10-plus to attend (with appropriate supervision), it’s certainly true that they’re on the adult-orientated side, which stands in contrast with the museum itself, which is a primary school classic that offers free admission for youngsters and has an absolutely banging soft play.  It’s not a circle that has to be squared and London’s forgotten underground spaces are still definitely not really the place to send toddlers. But this summer the LTM is offering something a little different via tours of Aldwych specifically aimed at 10 to 14-year-olds.   Photograph: London Transport MuseumLondon Transport Museum launches new family tour of Aldwych disused Tube station     Basically it’s the same deal as the 'adult’ tour: you can explore the original platforms, lifts and ticket hall of the disused and otherwise inaccessible Aldwych station. But the tour has been tweaked to make it more engaging and a bit more exciting, with the addition of riddles, challenges and other hands-on elements. It lasts 75 minutes and kids under 16 still need to be accompanied by an adult. ID is required for legal reasons, meani

A sweltering hello to you all! The heat is properly on now, and the prospect of sitting in a poorly air conditioned West End theatre is … less appealing than it might be. Fortunately London’s outdoor theatre is in full swing just in time for the first heatwave of the year, and it’ll be on for plenty longer too, running all summer and right up to the Globe’s ever bold late October close.  London’s two ‘main’ open air theatres are now in full swing and on good form: we’ve given four stars to all three of the shows you can currently see in outdoors in London, which are Sherlock Holmes at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Mother Courage and Her Children at Shakespeare’s Globe. Beyond that, here are my top al fresco theatre tips for the summer ahead. The 8 best open air theatre shows to see in London The big one: Cats returns Andrew Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of TS Eliot’s whimsical book of cat poems was famously one of the most successful musicals of all time, the original production running for decades in the West End and beyond. While it infamously spawned a film adaptation that we absolutely do not talk about, there has only even been one stage version in the UK. Until this summer, that is: in quite the coup, the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre has bagged the first ever British revival of Cats. Expect something new and exciting with neither the overt ’80s vibe of the OG or the CGI bumholes of the film we don’t talk about. Regent’s Park Open Air

Half-term is upon us and the odds are you have some plans to keep the little ones occupied already. But with nine days to amuse them (or 10 for those with a cheeky June 1 inset day) and cossie lives always rearing its despicable little head, you could surely do with some free options that (for the most part) don’t require booking.  If you want our pick of the absolute top things to do at half-term, see our best of half-term list, which largely – albeit not exclusively – covers attractions that you need to pay to see. This, however, is the free stuff. The best free things to do with kids in London in May half term 2026 1. Check out the all-new Horniman outdoor play area The family-friendly Horniman Museum in Forest Hill has been going through some changes of late, with most of them thus far fairly inconvenient, eg the gallery with its iconic overstuffed walrus is closed until next year. But the upgrade works are finally yielding fruit, which comes this term in the form of its new nature-themed play area, cafe, interactive trail and community garden.  Photograph: Feilden Fowles ArchitectsNew Horniman play area     2. Get lost in the British Museum’s medieval wood Photograph: British MuseumMedieval woodland on the Bayeux Tapestry This autumn sees the British Museum’s biggest exhibition of the decade, if not the century, if not since 1066, as the actual Bayeux Tapestry is put on display. As a lil’ warm up this half term, there’s an installation by garden designer Andy Sturg

A big West End revival of Rent has been a long time coming. Jonathan Larson’s classic ’90s musical – which transposed tragic opera La Bohème to New York at the peak of the HIV/AIDS epidemic – was an instant phenomenon, its success somewhat fulled by Larson’s tragic early death on the eve of its opening in 1996. It made it to the West End two years later and has been back several times since, but we’ve had nothing since a low-ish key revival at The Other Palace a decade ago.  Nonetheless, the intervening 10 years have seen the rise of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who has relentless championed Larson and his legacy, most notably in persuading Netflix to foot the bill for a screen version of his other musical Tick, Tick… BOOM!. So here we are, with the first West End revival of Rent in almost 20 years. It’s helmed by musical theatre man of the moment Luke Sheppard (Paddington, Starlight Express, & Juliet) in a reworking of a version that played at Manchester’s small but influential Hope Mill Theatre during the pandemic era.  Stranger casting Photo: Victoria StevensGaten Matarazzo And it’ll come with some heavyweight American casting in the form of Gaten Matarazzo. Best known for his role as Dustin in Stranger Things, at the tender age of 23 he’s actually a pretty damn accomplished musical theatre guy, with roles in Sweeney Todd, Dear Evan Hansen, Godspell and Parade under his belt. He’ll be taking on the the role of Mark Cohen, the aspiring documentary maker central character of Larson

The weather may be cloudy and cold and it may in fact technically still be spring. But it’s meant to turn nice at the weekend and the West End’s big Summer Theatre Sale is upon us, so let’s get into that sunny days mindset as you book tickets for the summer at a nice sale price. The deal is simple. The sale is now on, and can be accessed here (Time Out is a partner). It will run until June 7 (which tbf is meteorological summer). It applies to dozens of shows, primarily in the West End but beyond that as well. And there are discounts aplenty, in all shapes and sizes, from relatively modest – but still nice to have – reductions on hotter newer shows to some chunkier savings to be made on long runners that are up for a little boost to get them through the summer months. It’s easy enough to scan the whole list, but let’s break it down a bit. In terms of long-runners, you can get tickets to see West End musical stalwarts like Wicked, Matilda, Oliver! and The Book of Mormon from just £25. There are some great last chance prices as well, the departing My Neighbour Totoro and Disney’s Hercules both offering tickets from £25, while if you want to bag tickets to the two-part version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (which will be leaving town in September to be replaced by the single part version) then you can currently do so from a superb £38. The sales are also a good way to book for the shows of the future, which may well sell out when the reviews happen but are happy to sell th

When Studio Ghibli/RSC stage team-up My Neighbour Totoro debuted at the Barbican in the autumn of 2022 it was to a storm of hype and delirious reviews: a phenomenon was born. At its zenith, the publicity images audaciously held back so much as a whisker of the gigantic puppets that represented benign, inscrutable forest spirit Totoro and the bizarre living transport the Catbus, their absence a promise of how impressive they were (they’re bloody spectacular). A transfer to the huge Gillian Lynne Theatre followed two lengthy sell-out Barbican runs, but all things must come to an end and the fact they actually started using images of Totoro on the ads a year or so ago was at least a harbinger of the end. There is also the matter of a limited number of theatres of size in London and a large amount of shows – many of them big-scale Broadway musicals – jostling for place. Photo: Manuel HarlanMy Neighbour Totoro, Gillian Lynne Theatre, 2026 So Totoro will be boarding the Catbus out of London: but not until next year, meaning if you haven’t seen it yet or would like to see it again, you have plenty of time to do so. Because demand has peaked, it’s relatively easy to get hold of good tickets, especially if you book far enough in advance. Let’s be clear: it remains a popular show, and they’re not going to start giving tickets away. But it’s worth checking out theatre sales and the like for its possible inclusion, and the cheapest tickets are less likely to be sold out. Regardless, it

It was announced earlier this year that rather than just cease all activities during its current period of closure and refurbishment, the tiny, historic Arts Theatre in the West End was going to try something a little different: it was going to build a temporary theatre that at 594 seats would be almost 250 seats bigger than the parent one. It would be next to Marble Arch, in roughly the spot where beloved London folly the Mound once stood. Well, that all seems to have gone very smoothly, and The Arts at Marble Arch (at one point it looked like it was going to be called Marble Arts) will open this summer. Photo: Pamela RaithSedona Sky, Esme Bowdler and Daisy Twells And the order of the day? Big musicals, it seems! It was announced today (May 15) that the venue will open in July with a return to London for Heathers (Jul 9-Aug 22), the much loved cult musical adapted from the Winona Ryder/Christian Slater black comedy that has played several seasons in London, mostly at The Other Palace. It hasn’t been around for a couple of years though and now it’ll christen TAAMA with a limited, 52-performance only run that will predate a UK tour. Following that will be the return of Burlesque (Sep 12-Jan 31 2027). The musical adaptation of the Christina Aguilera film has had a slightly peculiar journey to the West End that culminated in only a brief run last year (as it had to get out of the way for Paddington the Musical) but it’s booking a much longer stint here. I have to say I didn’t

Almost exactly a year ago, London’s hippest theatre the Yard closed its doors and moved into an unknown future, as years of cult success and critical acclaim allowed the punky powerhouse – which had been built from scavenged materials with a limited lifespan – to secure the funding for a completely new theatre to be built on the site of the original one. Catching up with Yard boss Jay Miller, I joke that the theatre’s recent winning of its first Olivier Award for its ‘final’ show The Glass Menagerie was all part of the gentrification of its Hackney Wick locale. ‘I was wondering what the difficult question you were going to ask was!’ he laughs. ‘We’re all super chuffed that we won the Olivier, it was the first year we were eligible. And you know, I’m hoping it’ll be the first one of a few.’ What’s changed with the Yard 2.0 beyond a bigger, fancier building? Quite a few things tbh, with a sense that the theatre has a newfound clout underscored by the obvious jewel in the crown of its inaugural season. Sir Ian McKellen has remained an astonishingly energetic presence deep into his eighties, with the almost-87-year-old (it’s his birthday this month) having starred in numerous plays over the last five years. Nonetheless, following his widely publicised fall from a West End stage in 2024 there was no stage work last year and the rumour was he was done with it. But no! This winter he’ll be on your screens in Avengers: Doomsday… and on the east London stage in a one man show entitled

Avast! And indeed, ahoy! It’s not been the plainest sailing on the good ship Secret Theatre over the last few months. In the middle of November it was announced to the immersive entertainment legends’ entire mailing list that a new show would be announced the next day, with industry reports suggesting Barbie would be the next blockbuster to receive their trademark treatment.  That simply didn’t happen. Skip forward a few months, and the company made two separate, seemingly uncoordinated announcements on the same day: one that last summer’s Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical would be returning to Battersea Park this summer (presumably in lieu of Barbie) and the other to say that Secret Cinema would be opening a new permanent London theatre.  What would go into this theatre? It was unclear then but we know now and there is at last a sense that the company has finally found its bearings again. Image: Studio DJL & Dale Croft To cut to the chase, February next year will see Secret Cinema’s new Greenwich theatre play host to Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Immersive Adventure. A show based on the Johnny Depp-starring Gore Verbinski blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl had been mooted in 2020 and cancelled for the usual 2020 reasons; the obvious difference is the name suggests (though doesn’t confirm) that as with Grease you’re liable to be watching the enormously successful 2003 smash on screens throughout the evening with lots of supplementa