Andrzej Lukowski

Hello parents and guardians! I’m Time Out’s children’s editor, and as a parent of two childen myself I can confirm that London is an amazing city raise kids in if your priority is ‘keeping them occupied’. Yes, you have to put a bit of commuter time in to take advantage of it all, but there’s a virtually endless stream of stuff for children to do, from playgrounds and parks to incredible children’s theatres, free museums to slightly more expensive zoos and aquariums, and all sorts of stuff inbetween. This is a sort of checklist of what we think the 50 best things to do in the city with kids are. Some of it is incredibly obvious: you’re probably aware that London has a Natural History Museum. But it’s worth stressing is a really, really great Natural History Museum, and whether you’re just visiting or have lived here all your life, a visit is a terrific day out. Alongside that, we’ve got 49 other ideas for things to do with childen in London – the focus is inevitably on younger children of nursery and primary school age, but we aim to cater for all here, from tots to teens. That’s all ages, all budgets and all times of the year – as well as adding new London attractions as they open or return, this list will be switched around seasonally: ice rinks, grottos and pantiomimes are great to take your children to in winter, less so in summer. Of course, there are more than 50 things for children to in London, and we’ve got plenty of other recommendations for you: it‘s full of outdoor

The only half-term holiday where you can reasonably expect nice weather, May half-term is a last minute practice session before the beast that is the six-week school summer holidays. The (hopeful) nice weather is a big deal:  ‘go to the park’ or ‘day-trip to the seaside’ are viable options now when they most certainly aren’t in mid-February or late October. However, there are still many, many fun things to indoors in London itself for kids of all ages. My name is Andrzej and I’m Time Out’s lead kids’ writer, and here’s my pick of the best things to do this May half-term. 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 26 and Friday May 30 (ie children will be off continuously between Saturday May 24 and Sunday June 1). Monday May 26 is a bank holiday; some schools will have their inset day on Monday June 2. Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this May half-term. 

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is back for summer 2025. For three weeks (August 1 – August 24), the Scottish capital is home to comedy giants, serious thespians and hilarious first-timers, all putting on shows left, right and centre. It’s a huge, colourful celebration of all sorts of performing arts, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.   But with so much choice on offer, it’s difficult to know where on earth to start. Here’s our pick of the best theatre shows accounced so far. The programme is famously enormous (over 3,500 shows), so we’ll keep adding to the list in the run up to the festival and will update it based upon reviews when the festival actually starts.  While most of our recommednations are from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) is running alongside it as usual – the EIF is slimmed down this year and has few fewer theatre shows than usual, but it does have one big one in particular… RECOMMENDED: Your ultimate guide to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe10 of the best comedy shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 202411 of the best jokes and one-liners ever told at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

It’s the largest arts festival in the world – there’s nothing quite like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (August 1-August 24 2025). With literally hundreds of comedy shows to choose from, flicking through the phonebook-like Fringe programme can be more than a little daunting. So we’re here to help. From stand-up legends to award-winning newcomers, these are the comedy shows we’ve either seen and reviewed or are most excited about at this year’s festival. Got some downtime between gigs? Then check out our pick of the best pubs, restaurants and afternoon tea in Edinburgh.  RECOMMENDED: Your ultimate guide to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe The best theatre shows at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe The best kids’ shows at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe

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 – Time Out theatre editor Andrzej Łukowski – plus our freelance critics. RECOMMENDED New theatre openings in London this month. A-Z of West End shows.

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. Between the showtunes of the West End and the constant pipeline of new writing from the subsidised sector, there’s a whole thrilling world, with well over 100 theatres and over venues playing host to everything from classic revivals to cutting-edge immersive work. 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 theatre in 2025, but they are, as a rule, the biggest and splashiest shows coming up, alongside intriguing looking smaller projects.   They’re 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 quoted are the ‘official’ prices when the shows go on sale – with West End shows in particular it can unfortunately be the case that if they sell well, expensive dynamic prices can be triggered. Want to see if these shows live up to the hype? Check out our theatre reviews. Check out our complete guide to musicals in London.  And head over here for a guide to every show in the West End at the moment.

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. I’m Andrzej Łukowski, Time Out’s theatre editor, and let me tell you 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 there were only ever a couple of hundred tickets released, to quite a lot of theatre productions where the set goes into the audience a bit and apparently that counts as immersive. There is a lot of immersive work in London, some of which is definitely theatre, some of which definitely isn’t, some of which is borderline, some of which is but doesn’t want to say it is because some some people are just horrified of the word ‘theatre’.  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 wh

February half-term is here again – oh joy. Usually the coldest and wettest of school holidays, it’s not that promising on paper, but London always rises to the challenge magnificently – of all the half-terms, this is the one that boasts the large number of things for kids to do indoors, with the mighty Imagine Festival at the Southbank Centre probably the biggest annual event in the London kids’ calendar, and plenty more on besides, from a Robot Zoo at the Horniman to the new Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Young V&A. I’m Time Out’s lead kids’ writer – because I have to amuse my own children over the holidays – and here are my top suggestions for the half-term, from brand new exhibitions and plays to your last chance to see a couple of excellent attractions for younger audiences. And remember: this is London, and there’s always loads of things for youngsters to do, from enjoying the city’s many child-friendly museums and galleries that really come into their own when school is out, to taking in one of the many, many children’s theatres that our glorious city and its surrounds have to offer. When is February half-term this year?  This year, London’s February half-term officially falls between Monday February 17 and Friday February 21 (ie they will continuously be off Saturday February 15 to Sunday February 23).  Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this February half-term. 

There are a hell of a lot of musicals running in London at any given time, from decades-long classics like ‘Les Miserables 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. Here we round 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.

To say that William Shakespeare bestrides our culture like a colossus is to chronically undersell him. Over 400 years since his death, the Stratford-born playwright is virtually uncontested as the greatest writer of English who has ever lived. Even if you’re not a fan of sixteenth century blank verse – and if not, why not? – his influence over our culture goes far beyond that of any other writer. He invented words, phrases, plots, characters, stories that are still vividly alive today; his history plays utterly shaped our understanding of our own past as a nation. And unsurpisingly he is inescapable in London. The iconic Elizabethan recreation Shakespeare’s Globe theatre is his temple, with a year-round programme that’s about three-quarters his works. Although based in Stratford-upon-Avon, the Royal Shakespeare Company regularly visit the capital, most frequently the Barbican Centre. And Shakespeare plays can be found… almost anywhere else, from the National Theatre – where they invariably run in the huge Olivier venue – to tiny fringe productions and outdoor version that pop up everywhere come the warmer months.  This page is simple: we tell you what Shakespeare plays are on in town this month (the answer is pretty much always ‘at least one’). We we tell you which of his works you can see coming up in the future. No other playwright is staged nearly enough to get his own page. But for William Shakespeare, it’s essential.

Hello – I'm Time Out’s theatre editor and also a parent, something that has considerable overlap in London, a city with three dedicated kids theatres and where pretty much every other theatre might play host to a child-friendly show. Listing everything would be a slightly psychotic undertaking and probably not that illuminating, as many kids’ shows are only on for a day or two. So instead this round up forcusses 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-schoolers and younger children does what the title suggests, and also includes shows suitable for younger school-age children. See also:50 things to do i

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. 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.

Playwright David Ireland has made a career out of saying the unsayable, which has in the past meant gags about rape, race and other such wearyingly ‘provocative’ transgressions. With The Fifth Step he’s taken it further yet: he’s written a play about how awesome God is. That’s a slightly glib summary. But in the programme Ireland explains how he found Jesus in 2020, and it does a lot to explain where the play’s coming from. The Fifth Step is about two men in Alcoholics Anonymous – which Ireland was a member of in the past – but the play is not really about the instition as a whole. Rather, it’s AA’s ambiguous spiritual dimension that holds the most interest to the playwright.  With a big scruffy beard and his natural Scottish accent front and centre, Jack Lowden looks and sounds a world away from his breakthrough role in Slow Horses. He plays young Glaswegian Luka, an inarticulate, twitchy mess of a man; an alcoholic who suffered a terribly abusive upbringing and is desperately lonely to boot. His very first words in the play are ‘I think I might be an incel’. He’s addressing Martin Freeman’s James, an AA old-timer who exudes a sort of seen-it-all serenity and is clearly angling for Luka to appoint him as his sponsor – something Luka duly does.  The men get on well enough so long as James remains in the driving seat. But then something odd happens: the programme really starts working for Luka. Or it starts working in unexpected ways. James – who is staunchly atheist – tries t

This cult show has been blowing the minds of audiences ever since it debuted at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe, and when I caught up with it during a boisterously sold out 2024 return, the night’s ticket holders couldn’t have been more up for House of Life. The evening is hosted by the glitter-bearded ‘the RaveRend’ with backing from besuited multi-instrumentalist Trev (aka theatrical duo Sheep Soup, aka Ben Welch and Lawrence Cole). I guess the vibe is a bit like a revival church crossed with a rave but much whiter and nerdier, as the RaveRend canvases audience members for their hopes, dreams and peccadillos and crafts them into uplifting, soul-inflected electronic songs. I’m going to be absolutely honest: while it was clear that 90 percent of audience members were having the night of their life, I couldn’t shake the sense that the whole thing felt a bit more like an enjoyable bonding game to play at a corporate getaway weekend than actively brilliant theatre. I’m not saying it’s cynical, but beyond the idea to fuse the euphoria of church and the euphoria of the club I’m not sure there’s a huge amount going on here once the duo have semi-freeformed their first song. Maybe I was just a little Fringe-weary at this point and struggled to get onboard with something that people around me were clearly loving. I think maybe it comes down to the fact that if you’re in the market for a Good Night Out, House of Life is liable to hit the mark forcefully, whereas if you’re trying to overanal

What’s the vibe? The venerable but ever youthful Thorpe Park is an amusement park low on frills but heavy on thrills. The relatively compact attraction, found between Staines and Chertsey, has some cool themed sub areas – the Roswell-style alien abduction area is worth a visit even if you’re not brave enough to tackle its sole ride, The Swarm – but on the whole it’s pretty no nonsense, with little in the way of memorable multi-ride larger zones. Is it worth visiting? What Thorpe Park really has going for it is rollercoasters: a veritable arsenal of them, many UK record breakers. On the gentler end you have the bends and twists of the old school Flying Fish, a modified version of Space Station Zero, the park’s first ever rollercoaster, which originally opened in 1984. At the decidedly more thrill seeker side of the spectrum you have Stealth, which was the fastest coaster in the country until May 2024, when its crown was stolen by Thorpe Park’s newest attraction Hyperia (which is, for good measure, also the tallest rollercoaster in the UK). What’s the age range? Although relatively young children can technically ride most of the coasters (the height requirement for Hyperia is a modest 130cm), there’s no denying that Thorpe Park is aimed at a more teen/adult audience than, say, Legoland or Chessington. That said, while my primary school-aged kids wouldn’t touch the more death defying rides with a barge pole, they still had a lot of fun: the Flying Fish is genuinely a perfect sta

The Natural History Museum is capable of turning in some pretty giddy exhibitions: notably, the recent-ish Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature revolved around a series of fictional magical animals invented by JK Rowling. Fair warning, though: the venerable museum’s first ever space-based exhibition is pretty sober stuff, that steadfastly refuses to sensationalise its subject. If you want to know what an alien invasion might look like or how realistic Star Wars is then there isn’t a lot for you in Space: Could Life Exist Beyond Earth? But if you’re interested in the actual question ‘is there life out there and how would we detect it?’ then this is the exhibition for you, made with the usual sophistication and care that defines the NHM’s temporary exhibits (which are always considerably less faded and more contemporary than its permanent collections). The entire exhibition is dimly lit, with soothing background music playing everywhere – the vibe is serene spaciousness, graceful emptiness and cosmic stillness. We begin on Earth, with the first galleries examining the extraterrestrial origins of life here. Nobody can exactly say how life on Earth first came to be, but there’s little doubt that its building blocks – carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and water – were brought to us by asteroids, of which there are several bits here, some of which you can even touch. The carefully curated exhibition instils an appropriate amount of awe Correctly contextualised, it’s hard not to

A fascinating feminist hybrid of EastEnders, Samuel Beckett and Wolf Hall, Ava Pickett’s 1536 is set in some marshland on the outskirts of an Essex village in – you guessed it – 1536, the year Anne Boleyn was executed.  Not that this is a by-the-numbers Tudor drama: the story focuses on three young women – Jane (Liv Hill), Anna (Sienna Kelly) and Mariella (Tanya Reynolds) – who never come within a sniff of the royal family. They see the monarchy as an important but distant constellation: in the opening scene Hill’s innocent Jane struggles for Henry VIII’s name beyond ‘the king’. The engine of the play is Pickett’s superb dialogue and the sweary, lairy modern-language chats had by the women in the trampled bulrushes of Max Jones’s set.. Hill’s Jane is an adorable naif, Reynolds’s midwife Mariella is gawkily sarcastic. Each has their own complicated relationship with men in the village. But it’s Kelly’s Anna who is effectively the lead: beautiful and poor, she is deserted and scorned by the townsfolk, especially her wealthy lover Richard (Adam Hugill), who at the start of the play we discover is set to be married off to Jane. It begins as a funny, even goofy, drama. Three Tudor women, effing and blinding away in an Essex field, using language that would make Danny Dyer blush is inherently funny, as is the fact that each of the early scenes begins with Anna and Richard going at it hammer and tongs in the reeds. But things start to curdle: aside from various village tensions galv

This review is from October 2022. ‘Elephant’ returns in May 2025. If Anoushka Lucas had become the British answer to Alicia Keys that various record company types had hoped to sculpt her into, then this autobiographical(ish) solo show would probably be a grandiose two-hour monolith, playing in a huge theatre, packed with familiar hits, special guests and juicy showbiz anecdotes.  But no: although her career as an actor is now really going places – she was terrific in the Young Vic’s Oklahoma! – Lucas’s debut as a playwright is in fact a modest hour, running in the Bush Theatre’s smaller studio space. And it’s all the better for it, in a way, a hushed and thoughtful piece of song-augmented storytelling that exists for the best reason: because she has a good story to tell.  I say ‘she’: in Elephant Lucas plays somebody called Lila. There are bits that are almost certainly not things that literally happened to Lucas. But clearly there are bits that did, and the two women are clearly so similar that I think we can call it a de facto autobiography. Like Lucas, Lila was born to a mixed-race Cameroonian-French mum and a mixed-race Indian-English dad. Also like Lucas, she had an unusual, bohemian working-class childhood, living in a council flat but scoring a bursary to go to a posh French international school. And also like Lucas, Lila had a piano as a child – which took up a chunk of space in their parents’ living room-slash-bedroom and shaped her destiny. Physically in the room wi

This review is from 2018. Tina: The Tina Turner Musical will close in September 2025 with a cast headed by June Karis Anderson and Fleur East, who alternate the title role.  Is a feelgood jukebox musical the absolute best medium to tell a story about domestic abuse? Put crudely, that is the problem at the heart of big-budget global premiere ‘Tina – The Tina Turner Musical’. The erstwhile Anna Mae Bullock’s eventful life and beloved back catalogue are perfect subjects for adaptation. But too often Phyllida Lloyd’s production struggles to make a sensitive synthesis of the two.Where ‘Tina’ undoubtedly succeeds is in the casting of its lead. Broadway performer Adrienne Warren is virtually unknown over here, but it’s instantly apparent why she was tapped up for this. She doesn’t so much imitate Turner as channel her: her technically dazzling but achingly world-weary gale of a voice feels like it should be coming out of a woman decades, if not centuries, older. And while Warren doesn’t really look anything like Turner, she perfectly captures that leggy, rangy, in-charge physicality. From a musical standpoint, she virtually carries the show, singing nigh-on every song and even giving us an encore at the end.Almost as good is heavyweight Brit actor Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, who brings a demonic charisma to the role of Ike Turner. Tina’s abusive bandleader and husband is monstrous in his self-pitying, manipulative rage, but it’s not hard to see the appeal of his raw wit and powerful sen

In a way, the whole point of the world’s most successful video game is drudgery: Minecraft casts you as a self-employed resource gatherer who lives off the land and must harvest wood, soil, coal etc. in order to create a shack in which to hide from the various monsters that come out at night. Setting up shop in a, uh, corner of new Surrey Quays venue Corner Corner, this officially licensed immersive attraction is only 45 minutes long, but that’s a whole two-and-a-quarter days of Minecraft time. And if my children are anything to go by, then the globally touring show – London is its second stop after, inexplicably, Fort Worth in Texas – successfully whips its audience into an ecstatic frenzy of resource-gathering that might become diluted if they were given too much longer to realise they had basically been put to work down t’ pit. Although Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue opened in London the same day as A Minecraft Movie, the two actually have no direct connection beyond both being adaptations officially licensed by game creator Mojang Studios (it’s produced by a company called Experience Mod in collaboration with Mojang). Upon entry, each of us is issued a little McGuffin called the Orb of Interaction (being Minecraft, the orb is of course a cube). By tapping or gesturing at the various projected environments in the attraction’s sundry rooms we can interact with them via the Orb to harvest the resources required to complete our mini quest, which is to save a group of h

This review is from 2022, when the show ran under the name Jurassic World: The Exhibition at ExCel London. It returns for 2025 in tweaked form at NEON in Battersea.  It is an irrefutable law of nature that every London summer requires some sort of dinosaur-based family extravaganza or other, from the puppet fun of ‘Dinosaur World Live’ at the Open Air Theatre to the distinctly wobbly animatronic dinosaurs of last year’s ‘Jurassic Encounter’. ‘Jurassic World: The Exhibition’ has a distinct edge over most of the competition insofar as it’s an official tie-in with the deathlessly popular Jurassic World/Park films. To be honest, though, this is a slightly double-edged sword: it’s cool that we get encounters with ‘Jurassic World’ signature beasties Indominus Rex and Blue the Velociraptor. But a few pre-recorded appearances from the films’ extensive casts – who’ve gamely contributed to various video game spin-offs – might have given it that little something extra. Or just a little more recognisable Jurassic Worldliness. The problem with being the ‘official’ live spin-off from a multibillion-dollar film franchise is that it raises expectations high for what is, ultimately, a solid mid-budget kids’ show with average effects, containing a lot of very generic hallmarks of the summer dinosaur extravaganza (notably the classic baby dinosaur hand-puppets).  It’s still pretty diverting. A starting sequence where we’re ushered on to a ‘ferry’ to visit Isla Nublar, the setting of the films,

Stephen Sondheim didn’t finish his final musical Here We Are, something we can easily determine by the fact there aren’t any songs in the second half.  He did however give his blessing for it to be performed – he wasn’t on his deathbed at the time, but having reached the age of 91 with at least six songs left to write for a show he’d been working on for over a decade, I guess he knew this was likely to be its final form. And so here we are. Sondheim’s last gasp is a relatively breezy mash-up of the plots of two seminal Luis Buñuel films, with music and lyrics by the great man and book by US author David Ives – that is to say the second half of Joe Mantello’s production is basically a David Ives play. It’s hard to know how to assess this thing fairly, but it’s reasonable to say that if you’ve snagged a ticket you’re aware of the various caveats about the show’s composition and are prepared to be quite indulgent, so let’s approach it from that general perspective.  The first half roughly corresponds to Buñuel’s 1972 film The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and follows a group of ghastly rich people as they try and score some brunch, failing ever more weirdly at each attempt. If there aren’t necessarily any all-timers, Sondheim’s lyrics are delightfully flippant and spiky. And modern: it feels surreal for the guy who wrote West Side Story to be making snide references to Teslas and the works of Damian Hirst. But that’s Sondheim: it was presumably harder for him to finish songs

This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The big word-of-mouth comedy hit at the 2024 Fringe is this outlandish yet perversely enjoyable late night gem from newcomer Huddersfield comic Joe Kent-Waters. Kind of like the degenerate, basement-raised offspring of ‘Phoenix Nights’ and ‘League of Gentlemen’ - not to mention Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’ - the nominal premise is that 24 years ago, Rotherham working men’s club owner Frankie made a pact with infernal powers: they offered him a wish and he asked that they preserve his club exactly how it was - immune to the outside world - until such time as they would return to drag him into hell. I would say that one hundred percent explains what happens in this show, but that’s kind of beside the point. Lumbering on in thick white face makeup that dissolves throughout the sweaty set, Monroe seems part infernal himself. Acting as emcee, he presides over a series of bizarre games, guest acts (all played by Kent-Waters) and audience interactions that do not in any way feel like they would have seemed current in the late ‘90s, or probably the early ’70s.  I was, er, delighted to find myself the participant in one of the interactions: early on Kent-Waters/Frankie – who is a pretty big lad it has to be said – demanded I hand over my wallet. Throughout the remainder of the night I was given a series of absurd, rigged opportunities to win it back – like guessing which marigold glove was filled with scampi fries. That sort of thi

This review is from Christmas 2024. Ballet Shoes returns for Christmas 2025. The National Theatre’s big family Christmas show is a sumptuous adaptation of Noel Streatfeild’s classic 1936 children’s novel Ballet Shoes. It’s slick, classy and meticulously directed by Katy Rudd. But ultimately it lacks dramatic punch. The story follows the eccentric household initially headed by Justin Salinger’s Great Uncle Matthew (aka GUM), a paleontologist in the old-school explorer vein. A confirmed bachelor, he is initially aghast when he is abruptly made legal guardian of his 11-year-old niece Sylvia (Pearl Mackie). But he soon changes his tune when freak circumstances lead to him taking in three baby girls: Petrova (Yanexi Enriquez), Pauline (Grace Self) and Posy (Daisy Sequerra), each of whom he found orphaned while out on an expedition. But then he disappears on one of his trips; the meat of the story is about his three daughters growing up in the unconventional, almost entirely female household headed by Sylvia and their redoubtable housekeeper Miss Guthridge (Jenny Galloway). Each girl’s life is defined by seemingly having a calling that they are simply born with: Pauline to be an actor, Petrova to be a mechanic, and Posy to be a dancer, spurred on by the titular ballet shoes left to her by her mother.   To be honest… that’s sort of the whole plot. On a beautiful, fossil-filled set from Frankie Bradshaw, Rudd directs gracefully, pepping things up with various plays within the play, m

From the people who brought you London Theatre Week – which is actually a month long, and happens twice a year – here comes the Summer Theatre Sale, which is, by most definitions, running in late spring.  But who cares when you once again have an opportunity to take the sting out of the cost of West End tickets? As with all these sales (which Time Out is a partner on), the basic deal is very simple: many if not quite all of the West End productions in London participate. Some, established shows like Book of Mormon and Matilda are offering a few quid off, which is obviously totally worth it. Others, you can get some pretty stonking savings: there’s 43 percent off prices for Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, which has recently announced that it’ll be calling it a day in September. You can get a walloping 75 percent off for the last few weeks of Ryan Calais Cameron’s excellent new thriller Retrograde. And if it is undeniably taking place before most definitions of summer, it is a very good sale for actually getting your summer in order and snapping up tickets for what will hopefully be extremely popular shows before the reviews come out and ticket sales go nuts: highly recommended shows with big savings now that probably won’t soon include wildly acclaimed US drama Stereophonic – a fictionalised account of the making of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours – the return of the Bridge Theatre’s excellent immersive A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and another chance to see acclaimed Bob Dylan musical

It’s been a long time since we had a proper season announcement from the Young Vic: its previous artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah announced his departure – ands a year’s worth of programming – in February 2024. But his successor Nadia Fall has been beavering away behind the scenes, and finally has her first season ready to go. And a very decent season it is, focussing on the Young Vic’s historical bread and butter of big name classic plays with interesting directors.  Photo: Isha ShahYoung Vic artistic director Nadia Fall Fall will kick things off herself in September by directing the first Joe Orton production London has seen in an age, tackling the 1964 classic Entertaining Mr Sloane (Sep 15-Nov 8), a dark comedy about a lodger who infiltrates a brother and sister’s family home, to the deep misgivings of their father. Not seen in London since 2009, this production will star Tamzin Outhwaite and Daniel Cerqueira as middle-aged siblings Kath and Ed. The big show over Christmas will be the UK premiere of US playwright Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Dec 2-Jan 31 2026), which previously ran on Broadway in a production starring Robin Williams. Set in a chaotic post-Saddam Iraq, surrealist director Omar Elerian’s production will star David Threlfall as a fast-talking tiger wondering what the hell he is doing in the chaos of Baghdad – the production will also star Arinzé Kene, Ammar Haj Ahmad and Hala Omran. Into next year and Jordan Fein – director of the rece

It’s been some time since a really big West End musical has closed on us, but alas: Tina – The Tina Turner Musical has just announced that it’ll be ending its run this September after seven years at the Aldwych Theatre. That’s no mean feat – a handful of behemoths like Les Mis have enjoyed decades-long runs, but with its mix of massive pop hits and gripping true story, the autobiographical Tina has enjoyed a lifespan far greater than the average musical, and it must stand as one of the more successful jukebox shows in history, beaten only by Mamma Mia!, We Will Rock You, Buddy and Jersey Boys. It certainly feels like it opened in a different world – legendary rock singer Turner was still with us on its press night, where she made one of her final public appearances. Now it’s due to be off, but it leaves in good order, with a final four months left to go before it departs London as the longest running show to ever play the 1,200-seat Aldwych. On the plus side, where one door closes another opens and we’re liable to see something new at the theatre shortly thereafter. There is no word yet on what it’ll be and the the usual theatre rumour mills are largely stumped: historically the Aldwych tends to to play host to musicals, though a play could easily plug the gap temporarily; there are a lot of Broadway hits sloshing around that could easily move in, or a new show like A Knight’s Tale, currently having out of town tryouts in Manchester. Tina announcing its departure strongly sug

One of the more pleasant surprises of the year has been that Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition you see advertised everywhere. Yeah, it’s kind of basic, but in a really high tech way, with all sorts of fun VR and immersive film bits and bobs that certainly offer a good two hours of distraction for younger audiences. And now we’re getting a sister exhibition. Admittedly the story of the Titanic may be less appealing to tween audiences, but adults obsessed with the doomed ship should be in heaven with the lavish The Legend of the Titanic: The Immersive Exhibition, which comes to Canada Water events space Dock X this summer. Photo: Set Vexy Although it will presumably lack the balls-tripping weirdness of the many sections of Tutankhamun devoted to the Egyptian afterlife, there will be plenty of immersion to get immersed in: we’re promised an augmented reality recreation of Southampton harbour, actual recreations of first and third class cabins, historical artefacts (original and replicas), a VR tribute to the ship’s famously determined orchestra, an immersive film charting the ship’s voyage and a ‘5D metaverse featuring interactive elements and 5D sensory experiences, including simulated smells and a realistic reconstruction of the different classes and areas of the ship’. There’s also a child-friendly activity room and Café de Parisien, a replica of the on-board cafe serving food and drink. The Legend of the Titanic: The Immersive Exhibition is at Dock X from Jul 25, ticke

Cynthia Erivo got her big break on the London stage, though probably not when she expected to. In 2014 the then-unknown Brit was cast in the lead role of the massive West End folly I Can’t Sing!, a parody of The X-Factor that turned up years too late for the zeitgeist and duly died a death at the gargantuan London Palladium. But unbenownst to her, she’d already made it: the previous year she’d got great reviews in the tiny Menier Chocolate Factory’s production of the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s classic novel The Colour Purple. It never went to the West End. But it did go to Broadway, and after that Erivo’s reputation was duly made, Hollywood came calling, and she’s not acted on a British stage since. That will change next year, though, when she makes the mother of all returns in not one role but 26 in a high tech one-woman stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. If that rings a bell, then it’ll be because last year Sarah Snook took the West End by storm in the conceptually similar The Portrait of Dorian Gray. Dracula isn’t a rip-off: it’s by the same Australian creative team from Sydney Theatre, headed by director-adaptor Kip Williams (who has in fact made a trilogy of Victorian horror adaptations with Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde currently unseen outside Oz). Paying moody homage to classic horror movies – so a very different look to the very fabulous Dorian Gray – it scored great reviews domestically and should be a proper showcase for Erivo, who’ll take

The blurb for this major new musical describes the 2004 Adam Sandler flick it’s adapted from as ‘one of the most popular romcoms of all time’, which is conceivably pushing it, but certainly there are plenty of millennials who will look back fondly on the Hawaii-set comedy about a womanising marine veterinarian who falls for an art teacher who shows no memory of him the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that, etcetera. It’s coming to The Other Palace in Victoria, which is very much off-West End rather than West End, but that looks like something of a treat for us: the musical comes with a powerhouse US creative team at its helm, most notably director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw, whose UK hits include Mean Girls and a little show called The Book of Mormon, strongly suggesting this run is a de facto Broadway tryout. The songs and book are by David Rossmer and Steve Rosen, whose work hasn’t been seen over here, but they have strong comedy pedigree – the show is shaping up to be more com than rom. Exactly how close to the spirit of the original film it’ll be remains to be see: 2004 was a long time ago, and there are aspects of the movie that have potentially dated, notably the running gag about Henry’s ambiguously gendered assistant Alexa. Plus his crew includes a penguin and a walrus, although these all seem like fun challenges rather than insurmountable obstacles.  It’s a Brit cast, with Josh St. Clair (who starred in the recent UK tour of Ghost) as Henry and in

May is here and with it the London open air theatre season gets into full swing. The Globe kicks things off with a cowboy-themed Romeo and Juliet followed shortly thereafter with a rare revival for a modern play – Arthur Miller’s peerless The Crucible. Over in Regent’s Park and new theatre boss Drew McOnie gets his tenure off with a bang as he bags the much anticipated UK premiere of Broadway comedy musical Shucked. But it’s another musical that’s the month’s big talking point: the National Theatre will host the UK premiere of the late great Stephen Sondheim’s final musical. The best London theatre openings in May 2025 Photo: Marc Brenner 1. Here We Are What is it? Here We Are is the final work by the greatest composer of musical theatre in history – that is to say, Stephen Sondheim. It is, plot wise, a mash up of two surreal class satire Luis Buñuel films: The Exterminating Angel and The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoise. Joe Mantello’s premiere production played a season off-Broadway already and now transfers here with a starry new cast. Why go? Because it’s Sondheim. When is the next time you’re going to the premiere run of a Sondheim musical? Never, that’s when. New York reviews were warm – FWIW the main fault cited is that he didn’t quite write enough songs before he passed away – and the cast is insane, including the likes of Rory Kinnear, Jane Krakowski and Martha Plimpton. National Theatre, now until Jun 28. Image: Feast Creative 2. Shucked What is it? One of the m

Actor David Harewood has history with Shakespeare’s tragedy of race and jealousy Othello: as a much younger man, way back in 1997, he became the first Black actor ever to play the doomed Moorish general at the National Theatre. And now he’s doing it again: this autumn Harewood will reprise the role in a new production by War Horse director Tom Morris that will cast Toby Jone as his nemesis Iago and US actor Caitlin FitzGerald as his wife Desdemona. There will also be music from indie icon and prolific theatre composer PJ Harvey. Quoth Harewood: ‘It’s very exciting to be tackling this monumental part once again. Last time around I was very conscious of breaking through a particular glass ceiling and I probably felt the weight of that. No concerns this time and I’m looking forward to starting afresh.’ Othello has been in the news thanks to the Americans: the play is relatively rarely done Stateside and this year has seen a big Broadway revival starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal that attracted lots of attention but tepid notices, exacerbated by general irritation at the $3,000-plus cost of the top tickets Morris’s production won’t attract a tenth of the hype, but there are good odds it’ll be considerably better: Harewood scored great notices first time out and has remained a fine stage and screen actor, last seen in the West End in James Graham’s excellent Best of Enemies. Morris is an excellent director who London has seen little of in the decade he spent running th

Time Out doesn’t as a rule review shows that aren’t in London. But I am so aggressively smack bang in the centre of the Venn diagram of ‘people who like Shakespeare’s 1599 play Hamlet’ and ‘people who like Radiohead’s 2003 album Hail to the Thief’ that when the opportunity to attend the Manchester opening night of the stage mash-up Hamlet Hail to the Thief came up I felt obliged to go. When I asked my editor’s permission he simply grunted bestially, a clear yes. To bring you up to speed, the RSC/Factory International co-production was devised by a creative team headed by co-directors Christine Jones and Steven Hoggett and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. Hamlet Hail to the Thief is essentially a truncated and rearranged version of Hamlet that makes heavy use of the music – often heavily reworked – of Radiohead’s sixth album, as played by a live band (not Radiohead). Why? I don’t really know!  Radiohead’s music is paranoid and existential and in that sense band and play are a solid match. But it never seems obvious why this album, beyond a programme note that states Jones had the idea when she saw the band on the Hail to the Thief tour. I believe every song from the record is included in some form or other, but that just makes it more perplexing: the likes of ‘A Punch Up At A Wedding’, ‘Myxomatosis’ and ‘A Wolf at the Door’ are reduced to (quite pleasant) instrumental riffs that suggest it was deemed conceptually important to cram every track in. But was it, really? What it’s definitel

The Bridge Theatre has had a big juicy hole in its programming for some months now, smack bang between the imminent return of Nicholas Hytner’s ecstatic immersive A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Jordan Fein’s revival of Sondheim’s immortal Into the Woods. We’d hoped a starry play with an interesting director might plug the gap, and lo! It has come to pass. In a busy year for Ibsen adaptations – following the Lyric Hammersmith’s Ghosts, the Ewan McGregor-starring My Master Builder and a Lily Allen-led spin on Hedda Gabler over in Bath – auteur Aussie director Simon Stone will put his own spin on The Lady from the Sea. And he’s got some heavyweight leads in the shape of Andrew Lincoln and – in her stage debut – Academy Award-winning Swedish actor Alicia Vikander. Image: Bridge Theatre Ibsen’s 1889 drama concerns Ellida, a woman who has settled for a comfortable life that is shaken to the core when an old lover re-emerges. As with all Simon Stone’s works – most famously his Billie Piper-starring West End hit Yerma – the play is a modern interpretation that he himself has adapted and directed, so it’s hard to say precisely what details of the original will be retained, but he should do something pretty enthralling with it.  Vikander is a prolific screen actor best known for playing Lara Croft in the 2018 version of Tomb Raider and for her Oscar-winning supporting turn in 2015’s The Danish Girl. Lincoln was a regular on UK stages before finding major US success with The Walking De

I'm Andrzej, the theatre editor at Time Out, and as I type this we’re having a balmy early May and nothing on the planet seems as wonderful as the London open air theatre season, which has just begun. Obviously it’s not going to last, but open air season is – as much as anything else – an annual act of defiance of the English weather, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Here’s my pick of the most exciting open air shows to see this season, which starts now and runs on until basically the end of October Funniest show: Shucked Timothy Sheader was one of London’s longest-serving artistic directors, having run the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre – on the whole, brilliantly – for 18 years until he surprisingly went off to the Donmar last year. As far as it’s possible to tell from a single summer season, Drew McOnie has not tinkered heavily with the OAT’s musicals-heavy formula, but he has got one hell of a musical to open his season. Shucked is a heavyweight Broadway smash that one would have probably expected to go into the West End (and it might still do so). But instead it opens McOnie’s tenure at the OAT. Apparently it is very, very funny, a story of corn-loving hillbillies who venture into the big city for the first time after their corn harvest fails. Open Air Theatre, May 10-Jun 14. Book tickets here.  Heaviest show: The Crucible The Shakespeare’s Globe outdoor season is always pretty damn reliable and while there are a couple of more outre choices for 2025 – Troilus and Cr

One of the greatest character film actors of his generation, you’ll know Brendan Gleeson for a million screen things, from Braveheart to the Harry Potter films, and most especially his two classic works with Martin McDonagh and Colin Farrell, In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin. He started off as a stage actor in Dublin in the ’80s and has periodically returned to the Irish theatre ever since, albeit sparingly. And indeed, he’ll do so this summer as he stars in a revival of Conor McPherson’s all-time classic chiller The Weir about a group of lost souls telling ghost stories in an isolated Irish pub. This new production will debut at Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre in August, and then move on the Harold Pinter Theatre in September for what will, astonishingly, be his West End debut. It will be part of a remarkable year for McPherson: probably Ireland’s most important living playwright, not a lot had been heard from him in recent years. But in 2025 he’s back with an acclaimed new play at the Old Vic (The Brightening Air), a revival for his hit Dylan musical Girl from the North Country (also at the Old Vic), he’s written the text for the much anticipated stage version of The Hunger Games, and not only is The Weir back but he’s directing it this time (as he did with The Brightening Air and Girl from the North Country).  It’s quite the year to be having and it has to be said there’s a little something for everyone here, but if you want a stone cold spooky-but-lyrical classic with a