Andrzej Lukowski

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 Coolest: Lander 23, Carriageworks Best for kids: Fireside Tales, Punchdrunk Enrichment Stores  Best for a few drinks: Plied and Prejudice, The Vaults 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 there were only ever a couple of hundred tickets for, 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

Christmas isn’t just for kids: come the festive season, London’s LGBTQ+ fringes fill up with filthy-minded adult pantomimes that are strictly 18-plus.  We’ve gathered them together here – but also a selction of other shows running over the season of goodwill that aren’t out and out filthy, but simply aren’t aimed at family audiences. It’s a slightly complicated balance as there are of course dozens of ‘normal’ theatre shows you can see sans children every holiday season: this list ignores regular plays and musicals and focusses on cabaret-style entertainments and – for want of a better term – shows you might go on a big Christmas night out to. If you’re dicing with Santa’s naughty list this Christmas – this one’s for you! RECOMMENDED: Find more Christmas shows in London 

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: Hippest musical: Hadestown, Lyric Theatre Best of the oldies: Les Miserables, Sondheim Theatre Best for families: Matilda the Musical, Cambridge Theatre The next 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.

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. London's best shows to book for at a glance: Best musical: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre Best Shakespeare play: Othello, Theatre Royal Haymarket Best immersive theatre: Lander 23, Carriageworks Best celebrity show: All My Sons, Wyndham’s Theatre  Best for teens: The Hunger Games: On Stage, Troubadour Canada Water Theatre 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

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 Best for babies: Scrunch, Unicorn Theatre Biggest new show for 2025: Paddington the Musical, Savoy Theatre  Quirkiest show for tweens: Dweeb-A-Mania, Polka 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 f

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 comedy: Emma, Rose Theatre Kingston Best for kids: My Neighbour Totoro, Gillian Lynne Theatre Best old classic: Les Miserables, Sondheim Theatre  Best for something a bit different: Cow | Deer, Royal Court 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.

To say that William Shakespeare bestrides our culture like a colossus is to undersell him. Over 400 years since his death, the playwright is 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. London Shakespeare plays at a glance: Best outdoor: Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare’s Globe Best celebrity cast: Othello, Theatre Royal Haymarket Best weird: The Tempest, Shakespeare’s Globe 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 ot

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. Althoiugh the summer is now basically over, the open air season continues for quite a while, especially at the Globe, where the main outdor theatre remains open until the end of October, and reopens in December for this year’s Christmas show Pinocchio. 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.

October in London comedy and the Edinburgh Fringe transfer season is still very much ongoing: you can pretty see most of the best newcomer nominees this month, including winner Ayoade Bamgboye and nomninees Elouise Eftos and Toussaint Douglass. If you}re looking for some slightly bigger names, you won’t go wanting – it’s well worth getting down to Greenwich to see Mo Gillighan’s low key work-in-progress stint. Or if you like something a bit more mainstream, Ricky Gervais will be descending upon us for what feels like several hundred shows with his newie Mortality. There are far, far too many one-off, multi-performer comedy nights in London for us to compile a single coherent page with our favouites on, which is entirely to London’s credit. So do check individual bills of comedy clubs online for that sort of thing. But if you’re looking for an individual comedian with a full headline show then this page is here to compile the Time Out editorial team’s top choices, often with our reviews from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The best comedy clubs in London.The best new theatre shows to book for in London.

Yes, Christmas is fun for adults. But it’s mostly fun for kids, who thrill to the sights, the sounds, the light and the implied magical forces of the season. Plus the presents. So many presents.  I’m Time Out’s theatre editor and lead kids writer, and I can confirm that as far as my own two children are concerned, Christmas is the most magical time of year. It’s also one of the few holidays where you’re not necessarily desperately scrabbling to find things to do with your kids every day during a two week holiday that is largely take up with family, opening presents and feasting, plus a handful of days on which London actually, properly shuts down. When are the school Christmas holidays in London in 2025? They run Monday December 22 to Friday January 2 2026. So in effect your children will be off From Saturday December 20 to Sunday January 4. And watch out for the school piling a cheeky inset day on after. Really, though, kids’ Christmas in London starts way before the schools break up: it’s pretty much go from when the big trees go up and the iconic lights are switched on. By the end of November you can easily meet Santa, go for an ice rink and take in a pantomime, all on a single day. This list is a best of things to do with kids over the London Christmas period. There is, unabashedly, a lot of highlighting of classic activities: have you been to Christmas at Kew? Great! You should go again. But there are also a handful of entirely unfestive events because maybe come early J

The summer holidays feel like they’re barely over, but suddenly it’s cold and dark and you have to amuse the little ones for at least another week. In other words, welcome to October half term. Despair not, however: there’s always loads to for kids to do in London at this time of year, not least because they blessedly coincide with the run-up to Halloween.  My name is Andrzej and I’m Time Out’s lead kids’ writer and also parent to two children who go to school in Bromley, where for some reason the local authorities think we want a two-week 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 October half-term this year?  This year, London’s October half-term officially falls between Monday October 27 and Friday October 31 (ie children will be off continuously between Saturday October 25 and Sunday November 2). Some children will be off for two weeks, that is to say Monday October 20 to Friday October 31 (or Saturday October 18 to Sunday November 2 counting weekends). Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this October half-term. 

Yes, trick-or-treating is a no brainer in terms of Halloween fun for kids. But there’s more to the second-most fun holiday of the year (after Christmas, of course) than trying to extract bucketfuls of sweets from your long-suffering neighbours.  Halloween typically coincides with the school half-term holidays (it does this year) and typically most major London attractions have a half term theme that will run for at least the length of the holidays, if not longer. meaning you and the family can really make the most of the city’s spooky, child-friendly events on either side of October 31. While our half-term list does include some of the bigger Halloween events, much of what’s on it has no bearing on the spooky season – this one, however, is strictly haunted events only. From pumpkin picking to scary movies, there are loads of wicked things to do on and around October 31 2025. Happy Halloween! RECOMMENDED: Our complete guide to Halloween in London for everyone.

Is the era of the big celebrity Hamlet over? I mean, probably not: the play is 400 years old, and some seasonal variation is to be expected. Nonetheless, after a period where it felt like you couldn’t move for an Andrew Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Sheen, Maxine Peake, Tom Hiddleston, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu, Michelle Terry etcetera etcetera playing the Dane, we’ve reached the midpoint of the ‘20s with very few sleb takes at all ( really only one – Cush Jumbo – in London). Does this matter? Not necessarily, but maybe there’s a truth that we overdid it a bit last decade, and now there’s a cultural hangover. The ones we have got in the ’20s have tended to be smaller and weirder: witness the Globe’s intriguingly low key Hamlet-as-a-psychopath take a couple of years back; recall that weirdy Radiohead/Hamlet mashup from the RSC.  I’d say the National Theatre’s first production of the play since 2010 – Rufus Norris was the first artistic director to simply not stage it – falls reasonably squarely into the ‘indie Hamlet’ box.  Hiran Abeysekera begins Robert Hastie’s production as a sardonic, melancholy prince who feels adrift in life after the sudden death of his dad and the even more sudden remarriage of his mum Gertrude to his uncle Claudius. He’s funny: some of Hamlet’s early wisecracks usually feel like forced ‘theatre humour’, but here, for instance, the line about the leftover funeral nibbles being reused at the wedding feels in keeping with a man who seems deeply

Part of the hulking Excel London complex in the Docklands (more accurately its newer Excel Waterfront area), ImmerseLDN is a whole entertainment district built inside a single vasty building. Although it’s difficult to really narrow down what it does precisely – it runs the gamut from exhibitions to theatre – most of the work staged there can be classed as ‘immersive’.

  At the National Theatre last Christmas, Max Webster’s vividly queer take on Oscar Wilde’s magnum opus felt quite a lot like The Ncuti Gatwa Show. Back on stage for the first time since he hit the big time, the Doctor Who actor’s stupendously arch take on dashing young protagonist Algernon Montcrieff had an ultra-knowing quality that defined the production. It’s very, very obvious that in Webster’s take, Algenon and his cousin-slash-BFF Jack are meant to be closeted gay men (it begins with a dragged up Algie writhing away at a grand piano, and doesn’t get noticiably straighter). But whereas Gatwa’s sardonically adult interpretation of Algernon seemed very aware of his own sexuality, that’s not necessarily the case in the West End cast. Gatwa’s replacement is fellow Russell T Davies alumnus Ollie Alexander, and he plays Algie with a waspish dandyishness that feels childish, not adult, a little boy roleplaying his whirlwind romance with Jessica Whitehurst’s bolshy Cicily. Likewise, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett‘s Jack is basically a gigantic overgrown puppy, wagging his tail in delight at the attentions of Kitty Hawthorn’s Gwendolyn, but with zero sexual intent.  All four ‘lovers’ go about their relationships with the breezy silliness of a group of primary schoolers playing mummies and daddies. Webster’s interpretation amps up Wilde’s wit by unburdening it of any need for us to believe in the romance. Indeed, the contrived plotting – Bunburying, the women only being into guys called

I’m not sure any show ‘deserves’ to be the most successful entertainment event of all time, but I’ll hand it current holder of that title, ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ – it still works hard for its audience. Sure, chunks of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s opus have never left 1986. But whereas describing a musical as ‘stuck in the ’80s’ is usually shorthand for cheap, thin synth orchestration, nothing could be further from the truth here: the portentously swirling keyboards and crunch of hair metal guitar that powers ‘Phantom’s title song have a black hole-like immensity, sucking you in with sheer juggernaut bombast. Mostly, though, ‘Phantom…’ remains strong because its high production values haven’t been allowed to sag. The late Maria Björnson’s design is a heady barrage of ravishing costumes and lavish sets that change frequently, working in everything from pastoral jollity to an ancient Carthaginian theme on the way to the Phantom’s stunning underground lair. It’s totally OTT – in one scene the Phantom zaps at his nemesis Raul with a staff that fires actual fireballs – and anybody who describes the plot (homicidal lunatic grooms girl) as ‘romantic’ should probably be put on some sort of register. But its blazingly earnest ridiculousness and campy Grand Guignol story are entirely thrilling when realised with the show’s enormous budget. And while Hal Prince’s production may have been hailed as rather gauche back in the day, in 2013 it all comes across as rather more tasteful than the av

This review is from 2019. I would seriously question whether any other show on the planet bar ‘Les Misérables’ could get away with junking its original production and carrying on as if nothing had changed. But ‘Les Mis’ could be transposed to space, or underwater, or to the height of the Hittite empire and it would basically be the same show as long as the singing was on point. In case you missed it: the world’s longest-running musical that’s still playing shut for six months recently while the Sondheim Theatre (née Queen’s Theatre) was renovated by proprietor and producer Cameron Mackintosh. It has returned, not in the original Trevor Nunn RSC production, but a new(ish) one from Laurence Connor and James Powell that has already been rolled out around the globe, with London the last bastion of the ‘classic’ ‘Les Mis’. The ditching of the original has caused disgruntlement in certain quarters: hardcore stans distraught that the exact show they grew up with no longer strictly exists; and the original creative team, notably director Nunn, who understandably feel a little betrayed by the whole affair. All I can say is: yup, I really dug the old revolving stage too, but its loss is bearable. The songs are the same, the score is the same (accepting that it was tweaked to make it a bit less ’80s a few years back), the costumes are the same, many of the current cast are veterans of the original production, and the text is still Nunn and John Caird’s adaptation of Claude-Michel Schön

This review is from 2017. See official website for the current cast. Okay, let’s just get this out of the way. ‘Hamilton’ is stupendously good. Yes, it’s kind of a drag that there’s so much hype around it. But there was a lot of hype around penicillin. And that worked out pretty well. If anything – and I’m truly sorry to say this – Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical about Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the US Treasury, is actually better than the hype suggests. That’s because lost in some of the more waffly discourse around its diverse casting and sociological import is the fact that ‘Hamilton’ is, first and foremost, a ferociously enjoyable show. You probably already know that it’s a hip hop musical, something that’s been tried before with limited success. Here it works brilliantly, because Miranda – who wrote everything – understands what mainstream audiences like about hip hop, what mainstream audiences like about musical theatre, and how to craft a brilliant hybrid. Put simply, it’s big emotions and big melodies from the former, and thrilling, funny, technically virtuosic storytelling from the latter. ‘Alexander Hamilton’, the opening tune, exemplifies everything that’s great about the show. It’s got a relentlessly catchy build and momentum, a crackling, edge-of-seat sense of drama, and is absolutely chockablock with information, as the key players stride on to bring us up to speed with the eventful life that Hamilton – the ‘bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Sc

Tequila’s smokier hipster cousin mezcal was once essentially endemic to a couple of Mexican states (notably Oaxaca), and while that remains the case in terms of production of the agave-based spirit, there’s no denying that London now very literally boasts mezcal bars in the double figures. And the more the merrier. Handsome Bethnal Green addition Little Fires boasts warm, colourful decor, a slick listening bar-style downstairs area, and a short but impressive food menu made in partnership with renowned Oaxaca bar Sabina Sabe and its chef Rodolfo Castellanos. As with the food, the cocktail menu is very punchy – there are only actually four mezcal-based entries (also partnered with Sabina Sabe), but they’re all bangers. Time Out tip Mezcal is nominally the main event: the Espresso Cafe was my pick of the cocktails, a faintly revelatory distant cousin to the espresso martini that tastes like deep smoked coffee. But actually the duck tacos dorados were low-key astonishing – the comfort food of the gods – and Little Fires is as good a shout for a late night snack as it is a drink.

This all-singing adaptation of the blockbuster 2004 Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore romcom is written by cult US musical comedy duo Steve Rosen and David Rossmer, who have been admirably pragmatic in looking at the source movie and concluding that no, you absolutely cannot do a lot of that stuff in a modestly sized London theatre in 2025. Sandler played Henry, a free-spirited marine veterinarian living in Hawaii, whose somewhat problematic posse of hangers-on including a perpetually stoned native Hawaiian, an assistant whose indeterminate gender was a running joke, plus a walrus and a penguin (not problematic but difficult to replicate on stage thriftily). Big name Broadway director Casey Nicholaw’s world premiere production very wisely ditches basically all of the above, with Rosen and Rossmer’s book reimagining Henry (Josh St Clair) as an improbably successful travel blogger, with no posse at all. He has made his name by hopping between US cities and capturing ‘one perfect day’ in each of them before moving on to the next (often leaving some poor smitten local girl high and dry). Now a lucrative contract to do the same in Europe hoves into view. But he has a final US stop in Florida’s Key Largo to make first. From then it more or less cleaves to the film. In a local diner Henry meets Lucy (Georgina Castle), a winsome, free-spirited young woman who he spends a wonderful, wholesome day with, despite some funny looks from staff and locals. His agent is desperate to get him to Euro

Pride and Prejudice will always be the most famous Jane Austen novel, but not only does Emma snap at its heels, it seems far more suited to modern updates – this year alone has given UK theatre the West End musical version of classic ‘90s adaptation Clueless, a more period accurate Emma in Bath, and this: a rip roaring modern update from rising star Ava Pickett. I suspect the issue is that while Pride and Prejudice is largely beloved because of how bafflingly complicated the love lives of the rural upper classes were in Regency England, then Emma goes the other way. It concerns Emma Woodhouse, a bright, well meaning if somewhat deluded young woman who decides she’d do a really great job of project managing the love lives of her friends and family – and then proceeds to screw everything up spectacularly. We can all relate to that! Directed by Christopher Haydon as a full throttle, pop song-bedaubed near-farce, Pickett very enjoyably leans into the idea of Emma as a fuck up. The time is around now, and the place is Essex – or rather it is after a brief introductory sequence set at the University of Oxford, where Emma has just failed her degree. With a year to go before she can resit, she limps home to the hometown she never wanted to return to, using her sister Isabella’s imminent wedding as cover. Unfortunately her embarrassment at her own failure becomes exacerbated by her wheeler dealer dad Mr Woodhouse (Nigel Lindsay) persuading the local newspaper to run a story about her

Arguably the entire point of the first play to be programmed at the National Theatre by its new boss Indhu Rubasingham comes around five minutes from the end – after the actual plt has wrapped up – when Ukweli Roach’s Dionysus adds the mantle of ‘god of theatre’ to his celestial portfolio and dedicates the NT’s Olivier theatre to us. And if the hour and 40 minutes that precede this moment are messy, I’d say they are entertainingly messy.  Bacchae is of course based on Euripides’s classic Greek tragedy nasty of the same name, and is the debut play from Nima Taleghani. He’s hitherto been better known as an actor, and while his biggest gig is Heartstopper, I knew him from Jamie Lloyd’s gorgeously rhythmic-but-serious Cyrano de Bergerac of a few years back. I’d wondered if his hip-hoppy take on Euripides might be similarly solemn. In fact it’s nothing of the sort: colourful, irreverent and frequently goofy, its sillier moments reminded me of those hip hop Shakespeare plays that sometimes pop up at the Edinburgh Fringe (The Bomb-itty of Errors and such). It begins with the redoubtable Clare Perkins introducing us to her all-female posse of dysfunctional Dionysus worshippers, aka the Bacchae. ‘Not even Zeus can steal my thunder, fam’ she declares. It’s fun to spend time with them, as they swear and argue and rage, but there’s the nagging sense that it’s not clear where their story is going. Frankly it also seems a bit unexpected that a male writer would be out to reclaim Bacchae as

Joe Orton’s breakthrough play Entertaining Mr Sloane hasn’t been revived in London in almost 20 years, and on this showing you can kind of see why. His dark comedy about a middle aged brother and sister who both fall for a sexy lodger with a shady past caused outrage in its day. But in 2025 it’s unforgivably tame and unfunny.  Or at least it is in this production from incoming Young Vic artistic director Nadia Fall. Despite the hot-pink posters and the presence of Jordan ‘the guy out of Rizzle Kicks’ Stephens in the title role, Fall’s take feels both wilfully dated – very much a ’60s period piece – and pointedly unfunny, trading the menacing comedy associated with Orton (‘dark farce’ is the usual term) for drab naturalism.  Tamzin Outhwaite is the best thing here as horny-but-tragic Kath. Yes, she throws herself at Stephens’s Sloane in cartoonish fashion. But someone has to get the party started, frankly, and besides she does a great job of portraying how damaged and desolate Kath is – her every pass at Sloane feels like a twisted gesture of love directed at her dead son. In fact her performance comes as close as anything to justifying the naturalistic route of the production – a major criticism of Orton is that his works now play as misogynistic, and Outhwaite’s take does a pretty good job in thoughtfully engaging with the trope of the bored, middle-aged woman, while also still being funny. Elsewhere, though, and Daniel Cerqueira does such a convincing job of playing her bro

‘Radisson Blu’ is one of those big international hotel brands that I’m sorry to say slightly blur into one another for me, but as soon as I arrived to check in at its Edinburgh outpost I realised I in fact knew it very well indeed. I have been coming to the Scottish capital every August for the best part of 20 years to review shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: it is comfortably the city that I’ve spent the most time in that I’ve never technically lived in. And you could hardly spend that amount of time in town and miss the Radisson.  Why stay at Radisson Blu Hotel, Edinburgh City Centre? For starters, the hotel is located slap bang on the Scottish capital’s iconic Royal Mile. And it’s a necessarily iconic building by necessity. You can’t just plonk any structure on the Mile, Edinburgh’s historic cobbled central street (or more accurately, series of streets), some of which date back to medieval times. Built of rose-tinted sandstone, and notable for its turrets and towers, the Radisson would look absolutely insane in a more modern setting, but manages to blend in nicely with the Mile while also showboating a little (it doesn’t in any way need the turret, as far as I can tell). Built in 1989 in a gap site where a group of 18th century houses once stood, it has apparently been hailed as one of the finest examples of medieval architecture built in recent times (that information is from Radisson, who probably would say that, but it is undeniably a pretty cool building and a pr

A truth about being a theatre lover living in London is that there’s really no need to feel any FOMO about Broadway hits because anything good enough will end up here anyway.  And so it again proves with the hotly anticipated transfer of US playwright Cole Escola’s massively acclaimed comedy Oh, Mary!, which Time Out New York’s Adam Feldman described in a five star review as ‘not just funny; dizzyingly, breathtakingly funny, the kind of funny that ambushes your body into uncontained laughter’. And he wasn’t the only one: the Pulitzer-nominated, multi-Tony Award-winning comedy is probably the most critically acclaimed show to come out of America post-pandemic, and has been a stonking great hit on Broadway too (where it’s still running, US production pictured). It’s an outrageous dark comedy about US first lady Mary Todd Lincoln in the last weeks of her husband’s Abraham Lincoln’s life - here she’s portrayed as a vituperative drunk with no interest in the Civil War or her deeply closeted husband (who she despises) but is instead fixated on becoming a cabaret singer.  If that sounds a bit wild – well yes, but evidence overwhelmingly points to the fact it’s very funny, and while it’s true that Mary Todd Lincoln is not as well known in this country as her own, it would perhaps not surprise you to know that it’s not a particularly historically accurate portrait. Plus Hamilton has done alright. Speaking of which: Olivier-winning Hamilton star Giles Terera will play the role of Abrah

The name is unlikely to be familiar to you, but two of this year’s biggest hit London exhibitions have come from a Spanish company called Madrid Artes Digitales (MAD). Long story short, it specialises in immersive historical shows that blend the nuts and bolts of any exhibition (historic artefacts and the like) with spectacularly dressed rooms and show-stopping digital sections (VR and the like) that open the appeal up to audiences that might find the British Museum’s latest a little on the dry side. So far in 2025 we’ve had Tutankhamun: The Immersive Experience and The Legend of the Titanic, and as the year closes MAD returns with yet another show: The Last Days of Pompeii. For the benefit of anyone who has been living under six metres of volcanic ash the last 2,000 years: Pompeii was a Roman town that was wiped out by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the year 79AD. However, its last moments were exceptionally well preserved, and while we’re not short on documentation of the Roman Empire, Pompeii is responsible for much of our best evidence of what typical Roman domestic life was like. Plus at a remove 2,000 people getting wiped out by a volcano is a pretty gripping story. Photo: MAD The Last Days of Pompeii will be a 10-gallery exhibition – once more staged at ImmerseLDN in the Excel London – that will take you into the doomed city. It’ll begin with an actual recreation of bits of Pompeii as it was – combined with period artefacts – before moving on to casts of the city’

Caught between the flood of new openings that come with September and the imminent arrival of pre-Christmas blockbuster season, October is a slightly random but very enjoyable looking month in the London theatre calendar this year. A cheeky take on Hamlet and a rare revival for Troilus and Cressida make it a good month for fans of weird Shakespeare, but there’s really a little something for everyone, from the one mega-celebrity opening in the form of the Susan Sarandon-starring Mary Page Marlowe, to a welcome opportunity for London to see hyped transfers for gorgeous mini folk musical Ohio and sprawling Polish avant-garde epic Rohtko. The best new London theatre openings in October 2025  Image: Guy J Sanders 1. The Unbelievers Playwright Nick Payne has been a stranger to the theatre of late, with the Constellations writer having drifted into screenwriting, notably his A24 film We Live in Time. But there’s every reason to be very excited about his return, as a lot of other great people seem to be excited too. War Horse and Curious Incident director Marianne Elliott will direct The Unbelievers, which stars the reliably awesome Nicola Walker as a grieving mother experiencing every moment since her son disappeared simultaneously. Hard to know what the hell that means, but Payne did pull off a multiversal romcom in Constellations, so if anyone can do this, he can. Royal Court Theatre, Oct 10-Nov 28. Buy tickets here.   Image: Bryan Mayes 2. Mary Page Marlowe Hands down the st

Stratford East – formerly known as Theatre Royal Stratford East – comes with one of the weightiest legacies in all of London theatre. It was formerly run by Joan Littlewood, the hugely influential mid-20th century iconoclast who gave British theatre an almighty kick up the backside and probably stands as the second most famous London artistic director of all time after Olivier.  Many of her successors have tried to grapple with this legacy – reviving some of her greatest hits, building a big statue of her – and maybe that’s something newcomer Lisa Spirling (formerly of the small but influential Theatre 503) will get into in the future. But for now she’s dropped a slick three-part season that’s full of early promise.  Kicking off in the new year, the first show will be the much-anticipated US playwright Moisés Kaufman's Pulitzer-nominated docudrama Here There are Blueberries (Jan 31-Feb 28 2026), which dramatises the 2007 discovery of a shocking album of photograph of the Nazi staff at Auschwitz at leisure. As in the US, Kaufman himself will direct. That’ll be followed by a revival for Choir Boy (Mar 26-Apr 25 2026) by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney (probably best known for his hit film Moonlight). Telling the story of gifted Black queer singer and soloist who encounters friction with a peer, the Nancy Medina-directed production won great notices at the Bristol Old Vic a couple of years back and now heads over here. Finally Spirling herself will make her directorial debut at

Technically known as Beetlejuice The Musical. The Musical. The Musical, this massive scale Broadway adaptation of the classic Tim Burton comedy horror movie has been a big hit in the States, running for four years at the hulking Winter Garden Theatre and due to make a limited return there right about now. Having opened on Broadway in 2019, part of the reason it’s taken a while to cross the pond is that a big theatre is needed to contain it and there aren’t many of those free over here. Fellow US smash MJ the Musical previously nipped in to claim the Prince Edward Theatre, but the Michael Jackson jukebox joint will be offski in the new year.  So here comes Beetlejuice! For those unfamiliar, Burton’s 1988 film concerns a couple who die and awaken in the afterlife, only to discover that a ghastly new family has occupied their dream home. Unhappy with this state of affairs, they summon the batshit mental ‘bio-exorcist’ Betelgeuse to drive the interlopers away, with catastrophic results. The musical – with songs by Australian singer-songwriter Eddie Perfect, and book by Scott Brown and Anthony King – essentially cleaves to the plot of the film, with lashings of goofy fourth wall-breaking humour and much praise from NYC critics (including Time Out New York’s Adam Feldman) for its spectacular (and spectacularly weird) sets. And now it’s coming our way! There’s no word yet on the casting for Moulin Rouge! director Alex Timbers’s production, although the fact the US production is maki

London theatre is basically busy all year round (except for a bit in the summer), but the autumn – which for the purpose of argument I’m going to call October and November – is a head-spinningly brisk time for new shows and a launching pad for some truly massive production, some of which I’d imagine will still be running next autumn. Here’s my pick of the best shows to see this autumn. The Unbelievers Under its current, new-ish management, the Royal Court has mixed fairly fanciful arthouse projects with the odd play that couldn’t look more like a hit if Taylor Swift took a role in it. The Unbelievers (pictured top) is one such show and frankly it looks wonderful. It’s written by Nick Payne, the playwright best known for his bittersweet multiversal love story Constellations, and it has a similarly highfalutin set up. It follows a mother whose teenage son disappeared years previously – and now she experiences every moment of each of those years all at once. I have no idea how that’s going to work, but it sounds really cool. It’s also directed by Marianne Elliott, who did the honours for smashes like War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and if that wasn’t enough it stars Nicola Walker who is frankly just awesome. It is mostly sold out (as I’m typing this there are a couple of dates at the end of the run with tickets left) but the good thing about the Royal Court is it leaves selling its Monday tickets until the day itself, so you’re always in with a

Exploring Space is dead! Long live just plain Space! It is definitely possible to overhype the fact that the Science Museum has just said goodbye to its original space exhibition – which ran for almost 40 years – and replaced it with a new one.  I was a bit uncertain as to what to exactly expect. Surely the spectacular actual spaceships that were on display before would not be binned? They have not! With a few relatively small tweaks, Space features the same items as Exploring Space did when it closed. But it’s also worth pointing out that Exploring Space changed considerably over its lifespan, with items like Tim Peake’s space capsule and a spacesuit belonging to the first Brit in space, Helen Sharman, being added way after its 1986 opening. Photo: Kevin Percival|Mary Freeman It is, nonetheless, all change, and having been to Exploring Space a half dozen times, this felt greatly freshened up. The collection has been shunted to the back of the Science Museum – it’s now in the gallery right next to the cafe – and if the term ‘rehang’ is applicable to spacecraft, then this is a rehang. A really good rehang! The spaceships remain the focal point of the exhibition: Peake’s Soyuz capsule and the Apollo 10 command module are now right next to each other, and much closer to the barrier. They’ve also been tilted and elevated so that they have much more presence in the room, and it's easier to see inside these now curiously retrofuturistic pods. The parachute from Peake’s capsule i

Seventy-five years ago the Southbank Centre – or the earliest iteration of it – roared into life with its inaugural event the Festival of Great Britain, a showcase for the best in British arts, science and design that was launched in an effort to cheer up a glum postwar London.  Though there are few around who remember it now, the Festival of Great Britain had eight million visitors during its months-long run and is still talked about to this day – there was some attempt to invoke its memory in the complicated semi-farrago that was Unboxed/Festival UK*22/‘the Festival of Brexit’ (if you can’t remember this don’t worry). But now a true successor has been announced: next year the Southbank Centre’s 2026 75th anniversary programme will play explicit homage to the Festival of Great Britain, most notably in You Are Here (May 4 and 5 2026), a huge weekend-long celebration of British youth culture conceived and directed by the one and only Danny ‘London Olympics Opening Ceremony’ Boyle, plus Gareth Pugh, Carson McColl and Paulette Randall. Thousands of performers will be involved in a celebration that promises to take over the entirety of the vast Thames side arts complex, with Boyle promising that there will be so much going on in every nook and cranny that every visitor will get a potentially totally different experience.  Throughout the rest of the season there will be an emphasis on bringing back big figures from throughout the Southbank’s history. The great Anish Kapoor will re

★★★ Although Aussie director Simon Stone has staged only a handful of shows in the UK, it has to be said that you can see a pattern developing. Take a classic play – previously Lorca’s Yerma and Seneca's Phaedra – rewrite the whole thing into aggressively modern English that revolves around long, light hearted stretches of posh people swearing amusingly, season with a bit of Berlin-indebted stage trickery, and finally change tack and wallop us with the tragedy, right in the guts.  The Lady from the Sea is based on Ibsen’s 1888 drama of the same name, and shares its basic plot beats while tinkering with much of the underlying characterisation and motives.  In a starry production. Edward (Andrew Lincoln) is a wealthy neurosurgeon married to his second wife Ellida (Alicia Vikander), a successful writer. They live with Edward’s two pathologically precocious daughters from his first marriage: Asa (Grace Oddie-Jones), who is at university, and Hilda (Isobel Akuwudike), who is at school. Tossed into the mix are Heath (Joe Alwyn), a hot but nerdy distant cousin who has come to Edward to get a diagnosis for a worrying neurological symptoms, and Lyle (John Macmillan), Edward and Ellida’s droll family friend, who is also hot but nerdy. On Lizzie Clachlan’s bougie white thrust set – suggestive of a fancy modern home, without spelling it out – The Lady from the Sea proceeds exactly as you’d expect a Simon Stone play to proceed. There is a lot of very posh banter, that’s very entertaining

Last time Sheridan Smith was in the West End it was with Ivo van Hove’s Opening Night, a leftfield art musical that in no way deserved the sneering notices it got in the more backwards quarters of the press, but at the same time was clearly much too weird for a mass Theatreland audience. But Smith’ll bounce back this Christmas, rejoining forces with Opening Night producers Wessex Grove as she plots her West End return.  That said, an Alan Ayckbourn okay definitely sounds like a safer commercial bet than a formally challenging Euro-musical: she’ll star in a revival of the veteran British dramatist’s hit 1985 play Woman in Mind, directed by ex-Donmar boss Michael Longhurst.  As with much of Ayckbourn’s work, this one comes with a conceit. It concerns Susan (Smith), a woman who takes a bump to the head and starts to experience two versions of reality: one real, one imagined.  It’s certainly an interesting play to revive: Ayckbourn was at his commercial zenith when it premiered but it’s been an age since he was last in the West End. It’s not entirely risk free. Then again, it sounds very much up the street of the ever winsome Smith, and a meaty role to get her teeth into to boot. Expect her to be back to her hit-making ways. Woman in Mind is at the Duke of York’s Theatre, Dec 9-Feb 28 2026. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2025. Denise Gough and Billy Crudup will star in a new West End version of classic Western High Noon.

Although it’s still the number one destination in the country to see weird stuff that the Victorians taxidermied, the Natural History Museum has been quietly getting into cutting edge technology in recent years, with the launch of its Visions of Nature AR experience and immersive film Our Story with David Attenborough. Now it takes a further step into the 21st century via a new collaboration with the popular international virtual gaming chain Sandbox VR (which has three branches in London). And it doesn’t take a genius to work out what the new game might be about: much as we love the NHM for its exhaustive exploration of the natural world, the headline attraction has long been dinosaurs, and such is the focus of the Sandbox VR collab. Age of Dinosaurs is a brand-new virtual reality adventure that has been created in collaboration with the museum and palaeontologist Darren Naish. Specifically aimed at a younger audience, it’ll see players visit 15 different locations throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous period, where they'll encounter some of the most scientifically accurate dinos ever depicted in any medium. It’s an exploration game, that seems profoundly unlikely to give you the opportunity to zap a T-rex with anything more than a camera. But the visuals should be second to none, about as close as you can get to voyaging back to Mesozoic days outside of a time machine.  Age of Dinosaurs is due to roll out to Sandbox VR’s more than 60 global locations in 2026, date TBA. The

There are only two shows in the Globe’s new 2026 indoor winter season – but they’re both extremely intriguing. The Tempest (Jan 17-Apr 12 2026) is a Globe staple, but you’re unlikely to have ever seen one like this before. The great avant-garde theatre maker Tim Crouch – last seen at the Globe with his one-man Shakespearean kids’ show I, Malvolio – has been given the keys to the theatre. He’ll star as Prospero in a version of the play in which Crouch’s magician, his daughter Miranda, and the spirits Ariel and Caliban are the only living creatures on the island, and the story of their escape is merely a made up tale they tell themselves to pass the years. It should be fascinating, and certainly like no Tempest you’ve seen. Fascinating for a totally different reason is Deep Azure (Feb 7-Apr 11 2026), a 2005 play by the late Chadwick Boseman who is – of course – better known as a Hollywood actor, most particularly as Black Panther in various Marvel films. Azure Blue predates all that by a long way: it’s a poetic Shakespeare-inspired drama that follows Azure, a young woman whose life spirals out of control after the shooting of her fiancé Deep, and must then have the strength to recover. It’ll be directed by Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu, whose previous credits include the smash hit For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy. The new Globe winter programme may be short, but it’s as interesting a season as you’ll see on a British stage anywhere this year (or nex