Andrzej Lukowski

From huge star vehicles and massive West End musical to hip fringe shows and more, here’s the very latest London theatre reviews from the Time Out theatre team. RECOMMENDED New theatre openings in London this month. A-Z of West End shows.

Every week, a frankly stupid amount of brilliant new restaurants, cafés and street food joints arrive in London. Which makes whittling down a shortlist of the best newbies a serious challenge. But here it is. The 20 very best new restaurants in the capital, ranked.  Go forth and eat, featuring everything from hyped new Mayfair spot The Dover to French bistro bangers at Josephine in Fulham, Med sharing dishes at Morchella in Clerkenwell and Akara, a Michelin star restaurant offshoot in Borough. We also show some love for the sublime small plates at Hackney's Sune, modern Malaysian cuisine at Mambow in Clapton, tasty sausage at Bistro Freddie in Spitalfields, Italian-ish snacks at Forza Wine on the South Bank and Filipino sharing feasts at Donia in Soho.  Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. RECOMMENDED: The 50 best restaurants in London.

London’s theatre scene is the most exciting in the world: perfectly balanced between the musical theatre of Broadway and the experimentalism of Europe. 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 2024, 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. 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.

It's never to early to introduce kids to the magic of theatre: there are literally shows for babies. But if your kids are a bit older than that, don’t worry: London kids theatre is bursting with shows that'll delight junior audiences of all sorts. There are gentle puppet shows for toddlers. Bright and shiny, song-stuffed adventures for young kids. Smart dramas that are sure to hold teenagers rapt. And spectacular musicals that are perfect for the whole family (or just adults looking for a great night out) 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:101 things to do in London with kids.The best child-friendly restaurants in London.The top 9 museums in London for kids.

Want to know what the best theatre shows running in London right now are? Well you’ve come to the right place. This is our regularly-updated round-up of the very best stage shows, musicals plays and everything in between that you can currently see on London’s stages, from massive West End musicals that have been in place for years, to cool fringe theatre productions that’ll be around for just a few weeks. Our recommendations are all based upon reviews by our team of theatre critics. If you’re interested in preview recommendations – of what we think will be the best shows coming up will be, although we haven’t seen them yet – check out our best shows to book for and best shows coming up this month. 

There are a million podcasts out there, and 2024’s releases are showing no signs of slowing down. There’s already been a load of bangers since the beginning of the year, and here at Time Out, we’re determined to listen to them all. After all, how else are you going to know which one to choose? We’ve rounded up our favourites, from political podcasts that look behind the news to comedy podcasts with your favourite funny people, and plenty of those all-important investigative whodunnits to keep you up at night. If you’re looking to dig deeper into one genre, we’d recommend trying our specialist lists on for size (you’ll find them below). But for a full list of good, addictive podcasts of every genre, read on.  RECOMMENDED:🎧 The best podcasts on Spotify😂 The best comedy podcasts 🗞️ The best news podcasts💤 The best sleep podcasts🎶 The best music podcasts

In 2019, we spoke to Richard Gadd about his Edinburgh Fringe solo smash ‘Baby Reindeer’, which later transferred to the Bush Theatre. In 2024, ‘Baby Reindeer’ has been turned into a hit Netflix show. Below is our original 2019 interview with Gadd. In 2016, Richard Gadd won the biggest prize in live comedy, aka the Edinburgh Comedy Award, for ‘Monkey See Monkey Do’, a dazzlingly theatrical stand-up show in which he discussed the sexual abuse he suffered. Three years on and he’s ditched the jokes with ‘Baby Reindeer’, a ferociously honest and unflinching monologue about his ongoing experience of being stalked. Being stalked has been horrible for you – so why make a show about it? ‘I thought there was a duty of care to let the audience and perhaps society in general know just how tricky a situation it is. There were times when it was so life-debilitating that I couldn’t believe it was allowed to get to that point from a legal perspective. And I just felt like that needed to be said and I felt like that was more important than my duty of care to myself, in a way.’ You had to listen back to all of your stalker’s voice messages to you; how was that? ‘It hasn’t been easy. There were hours and hours of voicemails and emails, and I had to remind myself of all the incidents, interview all the people involved. But the excruciating elements and the uncomfortableness are important: I think that’s what a lot of shows lack, that ability to push the audience into an uncomfortable place.’ Ar

There's a pretty much limitless array of fun to be had in London, whatever age you are. But this city is extra good for young 'uns, whether you're after theatre shows to blow their minds, free kid-friendly museums to get them learning without realising it, or leftfield activities that they'll be raving about for weeks afterwards, or just a really, really top-notch playground. Everyone from hyperactive toddlers to cynical teens will find something to get excited about. If you’ve got a bit of cash to spend then you can enjoy a glorious day out at the world-famous likes of London Zoo or the London Aquarium. But if you’re on a budget there’s plenty to do that’s free. London is full of outdoor options, from high-concept adventure playgrounds to gorgeous open parks, as well as other family-friendly spots that are free to visit, stretching your budget further for those must-do attractions that aren’t.  RECOMMENDED: Let the kids loose on these incredible adventure playgrounds

The Easter holidays are still a recent memory, the summer holidays are looming in the background: and now here comes half-term again, with the kids getting a whole week off – and entertainment will be required.  Fortunately, this is London, and there’s a near-infinite number of things for kids to do, from enjoying the city’s many kid-friendly museums and galleries that really come into their own when school is out, to enjoying the possibilities of the warmer weather and the return of outdoor theatre season. Please enjoy our 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. When is May half-term this year?  This year, London’s May half-term falls between Monday May 27 and Friday May 31. Other parts of the country will have half-term a different week. Whether you’re after some rainy day fun, outdoor play or some budget-friendly free activities for families, London absolutely has you covered. Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this May half-term. 

Kicking off with a whopping four-day bank, chocolate egg-filled holiday weekend, the 2024 school Easter hols stretch from Friday March 29 to Sunday April 14. That’s a lot of child entertaining to do, but with the weather hopefully turning and spring now fully sprung, it’s a great opportunity to go out and have fun with the family and take advantage of the most fun family activities available this April.  Stuck for ideas on how to fill all this free time? That’s where we come in. Below is a list of ideas for things you can get up to in London with the kids this Easter holidays.  RECOMMENDED: Crack open our full guide to the Easter weekend.  

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 end of summer. The former specialises in Shakespeare plays, while the latter has a musical theatre focus. But there’s plenty of other stuff, especially as the summer reaches its height, from the ambitious street theatre of the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival to the musical theatre blowout of West End Live. 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.

From the return of hipster American clown Doctor Brown with his first show in 12 years to angry ‘journalist’ Jonathan Pie making his West End debut, it's another rib-tickling month in London. The best comedy clubs in London. The best new theatre shows to book for in London.

Cricket and playwrights is a weirdly classic combination, with Beckett, Stoppard and Pinter the most famous amongst many vocal fans of the sport. Nobody has ever actually written a great play about it, though, and that basically holds with this entertaining but flawed diptych of dramas about England’s relationship with India from writer Kate Attwell. The first half of ‘Testmatch’ is set during a rainy day stoppage at the Women’s World Cup, a one-day match between England and India. In a players’ lounge, three unnamed members of each team are cooling their heels. The English team are notably more stressed: after idly bantering for a bit, a silly debate over the phrase ‘too little, too late’ leads to Bea Svistunenko’s captain smashing her bat up in frustration and storming off. Attwell is trying to do a lot of things with this short piece, which takes in everything from corruption in the game, to contemporary England’s obliviousness to its legacy in India, to clandestine lesbianism in global majority sports teams.  It’s enjoyable, but it essentially stuffs a full-length play’s-worth of incident into 45 minutes - Svistunenko’s character’s dizzyingly fast need to unburden herself of a dark secret could really have done with another hour or so to make its way to the surface. Part two is set in colonial Calcutta, at the British East India Company’s headquarters during the Great Bengal Famine of 1770. The tone is much broader and more knockabout – almost a ‘Blackadder’ vibe – with S

‘Nye’ will stream in cinemas as part of NT Live from April 23. The British, in case you hadn’t noticed, tend to get a little sentimental about the NHS.  So it’s understandable that playwright Tim Price and director Rufus Norris are wary of dewy-eyed hagiography when approaching ‘Nye’, a new biographical drama about Aneurin Bevan, the firebrand Labour health minister who founded the service. With the title role played by the great Michael Sheen, there is a danger of going OTT in having the nation’s favourite current Welshman star as the nation’s favourite historical Welshman. And so Norris’s production has a determinedly trippy quality intended to counter the cliches. Billed as an ‘epic Welsh fantasia’, ‘Nye’ is largely presented as the stream-of-consciousness of an older Bevan, who is a patient in one of his own hospitals. There for an ulcer operation, he drifts in and out of the present and into recollections of his past, unaware he is dying of stomach cancer – something his MP wife Jennie Lee (Sharon Small) has determinedly kept from him. Crowned by a truly uncanny wig, Sheen is a delight as the fiery but unassuming Bevan. He never at any point changes out of his red striped pyjamas, a pleasingly absurdist touch at the heart of Norris’s stylish production, in which the green hospital ward repeatedly dissolves into the past to the sound of wheezing lungs.  It’s otherworldly in places, especially the scene where Tony Jayawardena’s overbearing Churchill collars Bevan in the Co

This review is from the Donmar Warehouse, December 2023. ‘Macbeth’ will transfer to the Harold Pinter Theatre in October 2024 with David Tennant and Cush Jumbo returning. I wouldn’t quite say David Tennant has been upstaged by a pair of headphones. But as the two-time Doctor regenerates into Shakespeare’s murderous Scottish monarch, you can’t seriously attend the Donmar’s new production of ‘Macbeth’ and say that Tennant – or for that matter big name co-star Cush Jumbo – feels like the defining element of Max Webster’s production. Instead that’s the binaural sound design by Gareth Fry that requires all audience members to wear headphones throughout, an unusual and somewhat distracting experience, or at least until you acclimatise.  In essence, the use of headphones achieves two things.  One, it allows a constant stream of 3D sound to be relayed to your ears: the screeches of birds, music from musicians in the mic-ed up glass chamber at the back of Rosanna Vize’s stark, monochrome set, and most impressively a ‘three sisters’ who are wholly physically absent, just disembodied voices whose location we feel we can ‘see’ thanks to the pinpoint design. And two, it allows the actors to talk, not project, using casual or even quiet registers that would normally never work on stage - it was geekily fascinating to take the headpieces off now and again and see exactly how low a volume some of the dialogue was.  I’m going to be honest, for about half an hour I hated it, or was at least ve

This is a March 2023 review of the fifth cast of ‘2:22’. In May 2024, ‘2:22’ will return to the West End yet again for what we think is its seventh cast, for a limited run starring Stacey Dooley in her stage debut and Jenny and James Buckley reprising the role of Ben from some previous cast or other. Danny Robins’s ‘2:22’ is a bona fide West End phenomenon. It started life in the summer of 2021 as a novelty: a four-hander ghost story from the writer of the hit podcast series ‘The Battersea Poltergeist’, deployed to plug the programming gap at the Noël Coward Theatre while the musical ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ was waiting to come back post-pandemic. And Matthew Dunster’s production originally starred singer Lily Allen – an unexpected bit of casting, but not an outlandish one, given she sincerely seems to be making a move into acting. That was just the beginning, though. Since then it’s played another four West End seasons, and while I’m sure good word of mouth and the scarcity of supernatural Theatreland thrillers have played a part, it’s pretty clear that its audience has been expanded via the medium of increasingly wild casting. Last year we had stage debuts from Tom Felton – aka Harry Potter’s Draco Malfoy – and Laura ‘Love Island’ Whitmore. And this year we’re being treated to the inaugural acting performance from Cheryl, the erstwhile Girls Aloud star who seems to have left the concept of a surname somewhere in the rubble of her endlessly documented recent past.  It’s a fascinat

This review is of the original 2021 cast. From March 11 until June 1 2024 Cara Delevigne will play Sally and Luke Treadway the Emcee. Come to the cabaret, old chums, and see the stage performance of the year from Jessie Buckley! Gasp at the terrific supporting cast in Rebecca Frecknall’s luxury revival of Kander & Ebb’s musical masterpiece, foremost Omari Douglas’s passionate, tender, little boy lost Clifford! Be wowed by Tom Scutt’s literally transformative design! Wonder at the free schnapps you’re offered on the way in, and nod in polite appreciation at the pre-show entertainment! Also… there’s Eddie Redmayne. Now, I have absolutely nothing against the guy. But the presence of any hugely famous, Oscar-winning star is bound to distort the role of the Emcee of the Kit Kat Club: the Weimar-era Berlin bar in which ‘Cabaret’s tragic heroine Sally Bowles plies her trade. The Emcee is a vital supporting role: his sardonic songs set the mood of the show, and map Germany’s descent into darkness. But it’s in no way the lead role – in fact, the character barely interacts with the actual story. Putting by far the most famous actor in the show in the role would be enormously distracting even if they didn’t do… this. Wearing a series of beautiful, subtly sinister outfits that kind of feel like they’re trying to process every single one of David Bowie’s sartorial choices from ’73 to ’83 (more on designer Tom Scutt later), Oscar-winning star Redmayne really goes for it as the Emcee. Perso

In a wedge shaped set, bright yellow as bile, a machine does its work.  In Richard Jones’s staggering revival of Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 expressionist classic, our first glimpse of Rosie Sheehy’s Young Woman is the sight of her freaking out in a press of black-clad ’20s New Yorkers, her blue patterned dress frumpy next to their sharp, dark angles. The story cuts to her office. To the strains of what sounds like a demonic metronome, her colleagues gossip about her, repetitive gibberish underscored by their bafflement that the Young Woman is late – why would anyone would want to miss any of this?  Sheehy arrives and she’s not a timid wallflower, but earthy, speaking with a mile-wide Brooklyn accent. She lives with her elderly Irish mother, who is later delighted when her daughter reveals she has had a marriage proposal from her boring, unattractive, much older boss (Tim Frances). Her mum says she should marry him; an upset Young Woman screams like a wild animal; she marries him anyway. Jones’s production is a sort of infernal anxiety machine, percussive and remorseless, each hallucinatory scene immaculately crafted with its own distinct mood. Although the tone of the story changes repeatedly, catharsis is banned here. Hyemi Shin’s retina-searing set is unforgettable, Benjamin Grant’s sound design skin-crawling unnerving, Adam Silverman’s lighting exquisitely unsettling, Sarah Fahie’s movement ravishingly creepy.  Jones’s production is an infernal anxiety machine As much install

Itinerant attraction ‘The Art of the Brick’ has been trotting around the globe since 2007, and at time of writing had virtually sold out every time slot for the entirety of the Easter holidays at its temporary London home. As I have technically been an adult this entire time I have never previously had cause to visit what is essentially a series of Lego sculptures made by a single man: Nathan Sawaya, whose image and inspirational quotes are slapped all over the place (which is unaffiliated with Lego beyond its bricks being Sawaya’s material of choice). It’s not really art. I took a photo of a Sawaya quote saying ‘fortunately, there are no rules in art!’ and sent it to Time Out’s art editor. He replied saying that he thought I should be ashamed of myself. However, clearly the audience is not actually an art audience. The audience is children. One clue is the room with a gigantic T-rex skeleton in it. Another is the play area at the end, with a big pit of Lego and a big pit of Duplo and a nifty scanner thing where kids can place pictures of objects they’ve coloured in, which then appear in a virtual art gallery on a big screen. If the works lack razzle dazzle, Sawaya’s various humanoid figures are nonetheless technically impressive.  And kids will dig the art. Or models, or constructs, or whatever you want to call it. If the works on the whole lack a little razzle dazzle, Sawaya’s various humanoid figures are nonetheless technically impressive. My nine-year-old loved reading th

‘Little fish, big fish/swimming in the water/come back here man/gimme my daughter’ hissed a demonic 25-year-old Polly Jean Harvey in her 1995 hit ‘Down By the Water’.  That was a long time ago. But where so many middle-aged pop stars’ forays into musical theatre feel like bored attempts to crack new markets, the cycle of 13 songs Harvey has written for the National Theatre’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s ‘Our Mutual Friend’ slot seamlessly into her body of work.  The imagery of water and drowning that flows through Ian Rickson’s production of Ben Power’s adaptation of Dickens’s final finished novel feels of a piece with ‘Down by the Water’ and its iconic video. And where Harvey’s most successful album, ‘Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea’ concerns itself with the Atlantic and with modern, gleaming New York, ‘London Tide’ is almost its negative, steeped in the mud of the Thames and the grime of old London, which is referenced again and again in the lyrics. ‘This is a story of London, death and resurrection’ howl the cast in the opening ‘London Song’. ‘London, forgive me’ they keen in the closing ‘Homecoming’.  The show is billed as a play with songs: the tune count is a bit low for actual musical status, and there’s a conspicuous lack of razzle-dazzle. Anna Morrissey’s stylised movement peps up the numbers, but there’s nothing like actual dancing here. Musically, the keyboard-led songs feel like a hybrid of the Harvey’s eerie ‘White Chalk’ album and the most vocally

What is Dopamine Land? Probably the most important thing to know about immersive London experience Dopamine Land, is that it is called Dopamine Land. Where some other, similar events make a slightly cringey play to be viewed as art or informative, Dopamine Land makes no such claim: it’s a series of rooms full of mirrors and balls that broadly exist for you to dick around in and take some sweet selfies. It’s not art, it’s fun: it’s Dopamine Land, baby! What age is Dopamine Land for? When it launched way back in 2022 it was aimed at adults as much as kids, perhaps slightly more. It probably draws a different crowd in the evenings, but the vibes when I visited were distinctly families only - there’s something slightly hilarious about the fact you can buy cocktails at the end, as if one might get hammered in a soft play. Certainly it seems like a truly strange place to go for a first date, culminating as it does in a pillow-fight room. But for your average group of children, it’s undoubtedly a good time, and the staff are slick and good humoured when it comes to herding minors around. It’s not art, it’s fun: it’s Dopamine Land, baby! How long do you need in Dopamine Land? The officially time they recommend is 30 minutes to an hour. We probably spent around 45 minutes there total, which is fairly brisk but we felt like we had enough time in each room. There is a bit of waiting around, although this is a function of your group getting several of the rooms to themselves for a spell

This review is from May 2019. ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ returns for 2024 with casting TBC. Writer-director Jethro Compton strikes fringe gold with this beguiling musical adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story about a man who ages backwards, probably better known for the lumbering 2008 Brad Pitt film. Like the movie, Compton’s take on ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is a very free adaptation, being a lovably ramshackle and surging folk opera in which the story is transposed from nineteenth-century Baltimore to twentieth-century Cornwall. Benjamin is the son of an ordinary local couple who are horrified to discover that their newborn ‘child’ is – inexplicably – an 80-year-old man, with no memories but fluent English and a smoking habit. Benjamin’s mother is so upset she kills herself; his father keeps Benjamin locked away in the house, assuming he will live out his final years there. In fact, it becomes slowly apparent that Benjamin is getting younger. After some years have passed, James Marlowe’s gentle, troubled Benjamin is allowed to go to the pub on the sly, where he meets a vivacious barmaid named Elowen, who will go on to be the (extremely complicated) love of his life. The production is defined by the wide-eyed brio of the five-strong, all-instrumentalist cast, and director Compton and musical director Darren Clark’s propulsive, harmony-drenched folk songs. And unlike the portentous film, the script is infused with the humour of the shant

It is, to be clear, fairly nuts that leftfield European director Ivo van Hove has been allowed to plonk what I can only describe as a leftfield European musical in a big theatre in the middle of London’s glittering West End.  Presumably the calculation of producers Wessex Grove is that star Sheridan Smith offers enough commercial clout to underwrite the limited run of a show that feels almost entirely unshackled by genre niceties. But there is truly nothing else like ‘Opening Night’ in Theatreland at the moment – not even close. Like much of Belgian star Van Hove’s output, ‘Opening Night’ is a stage adaptation of a classic arthouse film, in this case John Cassavetes’s 1977 movie of the same name. It concerns the emotional disintegration of Myrtle, a famous actress struggling with alcoholism, the shocking death of a fan, and encroaching middle age – something exacerbated by her inability to connect to ‘The Second Woman’, the Broadway play she is currently rehearsing. In Van Hove’s adaptation, a camera crew is filming the play’s rehearsals – something that doesn’t have much impact on the plot (most of the dialogue is Cassavetes’s dialogue), but does offer a loose real world explanation for the director’s trademark use of live film. As with much of his oeuvre, a big screen dominates proceedings, and what it displays is at least as important as watching the actors directly; the composition of the shots matters as much as the mise en scène. Two particular shots dominate the first

It feels like just yesterday that ‘millennial’ was synonymous with ‘young’. But in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins rancorous dark comedy, a group of late thirtysomething American friends marvel at how much they’ve all lived through: 9/11, Iraq, Columbine, the Covid pandemic. And that’s on top of the baggage they’re all still carrying from high school, which they can’t even remember clearly, but has shaped their lives nonetheless. Oh and Death – as in, the actual Grim Reaper – is knocking about, occasionally possessing one of the five pals in order to deliver a monologue to the audience.  The play’s catalyst is Emilio (Anthony Welsh), who has been living in Europe as an artist for over a decade, but is back in town for his twentieth-anniversary high school reunion. Has he moved on from school? He has absolutely not moved on from school: whatever his intention was when he returned, he is soon poking at old trauma, relitigating ancient grudges, and starting fights over things that happened over half his lifetime ago. Not that he lacks reasons. His circle of friends – who used to dub themselves the Multi Ethnic Reject Group or MERGE (‘it’s a soft g’) –  have gathered at the home of Tamara Lawrance’s Ursula for drinks, ahead of taking an ironic prom-style ‘party limo’ to the reunion. But Emilio is dumbfounded by the presence of Paco (Ferdinand Kingsley), the older ex-boyfriend of his erstwhile best friend Caitlin (Yolanda Kettle). Abusive to Caitlin in the past, Paco is now a somewhat piti

If you’re looking for the definition of an embarrassment of riches, May 2024 in the London theatre calendar really does go above and beyond what could reasonably be expected of a single city to stage in a single month. Tom Holland makes his stage comeback in Jamie Lloyd’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’, the blockbuster Tokyo adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s ‘Spirited Away’ rolls into the West End for the summer, immersive theatre gods Punchdrunk return and Denise Gough reprises her titanic stage performance in ‘People, Places and Things’. And there’s plenty more besides, with a handful of exciting international productions and a new James Graham play.  Photo: Jamie Lloyd Company 1. Romeo & Juliet Jamie Lloyd is a director at the absolute peak of his game after last year’s visionary ‘Sunset Boulevard’; Tom Holland is an actor at the absolute peak of his fame after his blockbuster MCU Spider-Man films. This team up for a revival of Shakespeare’s timeless romantic tragedy has a hell of a lot of expectations to live up to, and Holland has an awful lot to prove, having not acted on stage since he was a child. But get this right and it could be the show of the year. That his co-star Francesca Amewudah-Rivers has been subject to racist internet trolling is deeply upsetting but should have no bearing on the production itself. Duke of York’s Theatre, May 11-Aug 3. Image: Muse 2. Viola’s Room Returning scarcely six months after their last show ‘The Burnt City’ closed, there’s something just intrin

ロンドンにおける、ロイヤル・シェイクスピア・カンパニーと日本テレビによる「となりのトトロ」の舞台化は大成功を収めた。このスタジオジブリの名作ファンタジーアニメを原作とした素晴らしい舞台作品については、会場となった「バービカン シアター」の経理部も乗り気だっただろう。だが、冬の季節に同ステージで3度目の長期上演をするのは、さすがに無理になったのかもしれない。 すでに第1シーズン後にウェストエンドへ移籍するのではないかと、多くの人が予想していたが、それが現実となった。同作品が2025年3月から、「ジリアン リン シアター」という巨大な劇場で上演されることになったのだ。 トム・モートン＝スミスが脚本、フェリム・マクダーモットが演出し、ローレンス・オリヴィエ賞を6部門受賞したスペクタクル作品にとって、これが最後のチャンスとなるのか、それとも同劇場でかつて人気を博した「ウォー･ホース ～戦火の馬～」のように実際に何年もロングランするかは、まだ分からない。 しかし、バービカン シアター史上最速の売上を記録した本作を観たい人たちが、これまでで最も長いロンドン公演となるであろうこの機会に、チケットを確保できることを願っている。 キャスティングは未定で、巨大パペットであるトトロとネコバスの画像は、厳重に非公開とされているため共有できるものはない。制作側は、パペッティアのバジル・ツイストと、パペット制作を担当するジム・ヘンソン・クリーチャー・ワークショップが作り出す見事なクリエーションに触れた時の「サプライズ」を台無しにしたくない、と考えているのだ。  しかし、我々を信じてほしい。それはそれは素晴らしい。 「となりのトトロ」の上演まではしばらく待たねばならないが、その間にジブリファンは2024年4月30日（火）から「ロンドン コロシアム」で上演される舞台「千と千尋の神隠し」を楽しむことができる。 「となりのトトロ」はジリアン リン シアターで、2025年3月8日（土）から上演。チケットの一般予約は2024年5月3日（金）からスタートする。 関連記事 『 ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ returns to the West End next year with a massive 34-week run（原文）』 『舞台版がロンドンで大ヒット、劇作家が語る「トトロ」やジブリの魅力』 『ジブリ好きのための東京ガイド』 『巡回展「鈴木敏夫とジブリ展」が横須賀美術館で開催中』 『オーストラリアのスターシェフが腕を振るうポップアップレストランが西新宿にオープン』 『ポートランドの人気アイスクリーム店がニューヨークにオープン』 東京の最新情報をタイムアウト東京のメールマガジンでチェックしよう。登録はこちら  

The Donmar Warehouse’s Christmas revival of Shakespeare’s ’Macbeth’ sold out months in advance on the name of its star alone: one David Tennant, whose substantial fanbase rapidly sold out the bijou 250-seat theatre. Everything else could have just been icing on the cake. There was the fact Tennant’s co-star was another big name, the superb Cush Jumbo. And there was the incredibly high concept sound design, wherein audience members donned headphones to hear the mic’d up actors, who were therefore able to speak in very low registers (even whispers). Photo: Marc Brenner As it turns out, Max Webster’s production was great. The innovative sound work paid off in spades, but it was also a tremendous performance from Tennant as an unusually malevolent Macbeth, with Jumbo’s Lady M rather brilliantly fulfilling the role of his corroding soul, growing weaker and more virtuous as he grew stronger and madder. In other words, it was too good a production to limit to a small audience of theatre hipsters and Tennant obsessives and long story short it’s been announced today, April 23 – aka Shakespeare’s birthday – that a West End transfer is happening. Tickets go on general sale at 10am on Thursday April 25 for its two-and-a-half-month run at the Harold Pinter Theatre, which will see Tennant and Jumbo reprise their lead roles, with the rest of the cast TBC. The binaural sound will also be present and correct, and while the Pinter is three times bigger than the Donmar, it’s one of the West E

Though the Barbican’s accounts department would probably have been into it, it’s probably fair to say that a third lengthy winter season for the RSC’s stunning stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s classic fantasy animation ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ might have been pushing it a bit. Indeed, it had been assumed by many that a West End transfer would follow its first season. Now that’s finally becoming a reality, as the puppet-driven smash books a length 34-week 2025 run at the huge Gillian Lynne Theatre. Whether this is a last hurrah for the awesome, six Olivier Award-winning spectacle – written by Tom Morton-Smith and directed by Phelim McDermott – or whether it ends up with a lifespan closer to previous Gillian Lynne inhabitant ‘War Horse’ remains to be seen. But hopefully anyone who wants to see it, will be able to see the fastest selling show in the Barbican’s history as it settles in for its longest London run to date. Casting is TBC and we have no images to share with you of the show’s biggest puppets – ie furry forest spirit Totoro and the, er, Catbus – because they’re kept strictly under wraps, the RSC not wanting to spoil the surprise of Basil Twist and the Jim Henson Creature Workshop’s stunning creations. But trust us, they’re spectacular. It’s a while to wait, but in the interim Ghibliphiles can enjoy ‘Spirited Away’, which begins its run at the London Coliseum next week. ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ is at the Gillian Lynne Theatre, Mar 8-Nov 2 2025. Public booking opens Friday

It’s been over a decade since Lionel Bart’s beloved musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’s ‘Oliver Twist’ was last seen in London, in a starry London Palladium production that was led by Rowan Atkinson as smalltime criminal mastermind Fagin, and juiced up by a tie-in talent show that cast winner Jodie Prenger as Nancy.  You wouldn’t exactly call its return to London this Christmas ‘low key’. But this new, transferring production of ‘Oliver!’ from the Chichester Festival Theatre doesn’t come with its own supporting TV show, and is in the more modest Gielgud Theatre, with respected comedy actor Simon Lipkin taking on the Fagin role. It’s still a big deal though: West End super-producer Cameron Mackintosh doesn’t put his name to just any revival of one of the handful of treasured classic musicals he owns the rights. This is a major new production of Bart’s adaptation of Dickens’s smash yarn about an orphan boy who flees the workhouse and takes reference in London’s criminal underworld. Directed and choreographed by the great Matthew Bourne, we’re promised that ‘Oliver!’ will be ‘fully reconceived’ for this new run, which will begin its life in Chichester this summer if you’re absolutely jonesing to see it early, before coming to London for the end of the year. However boldly it’s reinvented – and don’t worry, it’s not going to be anything too mad, this is Cameron Mackintosh we’re talking about – the classic songs will all still be present and correct, including ‘Food Glorious F

Had Elvis Presley not died young then he might well still be with us: it would be the King of Rock and Roll’s eighty-ninth birthday next week – startlingly youthful for somebody who revolutionised the world back in the ’50s and died in 1977.  The decades since his death have seen the legend of the man almost as busy as Presley himself ever was: in the last couple of years alone he’s been the subject of two major films – 2022’s ‘Elvis’ and Sophia Coppola’s current ‘Priscilla’. There have also been numerous ‘live’ experiences over the years, most notably the long-running Elvis: The Concert, an ongoing concert tour that began in 1997 and had Presley’s ’70s backing band playing live to recorded footage of the King.  However, as Elvis’s sidemen grow older, technology gets more advanced, and other dead or disbanded musicians rack up critical acclaim for brand-new concert presentation, it seems inevitable that the time is right for the Elvis industry to enter a new, immersive era.  ‘Elvis Evolution’ is a new show from Layered Reality, the company best known for its long-running London immersive theatre hits ‘The War of the Worlds’ and ‘The Gunpowder Plot’. Made with the full permission of the Elvis Presley estate, it’s due to launch in London later this year and expand to Tokyo, Berlin and, of course, Las Vegas. The exact nature of the experience is currently a little vague, but we’re promised that it will climax in a full-on concert presentation that will use ‘state-of-the-art AI &

Last night was the Olivier Awards, aka the London theatre equivalent of the Baftas, or the Oscars, or whatever your major awards ceremony of choice might be. Running at well over three hours and with huge numbers of categories, you can find a full breakdown of everything that happened elsewhere. But for you dear, attention-raddled, Time Out reader here are our main takeaways from the night. ‘Sunset Boulevard’ was the big winner, and quite right too Jamie Lloyd’s swaggering, audacious resurrection of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s flawed ’90s musical was the night’s big winner with seven gongs. Good: it deserved it. Not only that, but Tom Francis stole the show with his performance of the title track, which he started singing to a camera way outside the Royal Albert Hall, before ending up on stage for the final bars. Broadway is lucky to be getting it this autumn, but the scale of its impact at the Oliviers did somewhat beg the question as to why ‘Sunset Boulevard’ only had a limited run – whether or not Francis and co-star Nicole Scherzinger can return with it, it has to come back. ‘Operation Mincemeat’s Best New Musical award is the perfect end to the SplitLip fairytale SplitLip’s quirky indie musical about an improbable wartime MI5 operation has been slowly working its way up through bigger and bigger venues since it debuted a little before the pandemic, finally becoming eligible for the Oliviers after making its West End debut last year. The fact ‘Operation Mincemeat’ clashed with

The producers of the upcoming West End production of Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’ have put out a statement today (April 5) condemning the ‘deplorable racial abuse put out towards a member of our company’. While the Jamie Lloyd Company hasn’t named the individual subjected to racist abuse, it is understood by pretty much everyone that the person referred to is Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, the young Black actor and rising star who has been cast in the role of Juliet. There was clearly going to be a fair amount of scrutiny over the casting of the co-romantic lead of a play that stars the extremely famous Spider-Man star Holland, who has an equally famous celebrity girlfriend. And this isn’t the Jamie Lloyd Company’s first experience casting a big name. However, the abuse directed at Amewudah-Rivers seems fairly unprecedented in terms of stage casting, instead recalling online campaigns waged against the casting of women of colour in various recent blockbuster movies. As best as we can tell from some fairly grim social media posts is that it has little to do with Holland stans, and instead heavily leans towards an international array of obviously racist internet accounts, most of whom seem profoundly unlikely to have bought tickets for the play (which sold out almost instantly prior to any casting bar Holland). Many of the individuals are clearly based in America, and a not inconsiderable number seem to be under the impression that this is a film version, which it isn’t.  Photo:

Some huge names dominate April in London, as stage legends Ian McKellen and Brian Cox take on colossal roles in plays by Shakespeare and Eugene O’Neill. Neither actor seems to be showing any sign of slowing down, but you have to think this is your last chance to see them in something quite so epic. Music legend PJ Harvey will also get her first major stage credit as songwriter for the National Theatre’s Dickens adaptation ‘London Tide’, in an otherwise eclectic month taking in everything from postcolonial interactive theatre to an adaptation of sci-fi classic ‘Minority Report’.   Photo: Manuel Harlan 1. Player Kings Ian McKellen is truly the David Attenborough of the stage: almost two decades past retirement age, this is something like the acting legend’s sixth stage role since the pandemic alone. And what a role. Aged 84, Sir Ian will take on one of the greatest of all Shakespearean parts to star as the funny, tragic Sir John Falstaff in auteur director Robert Icke’s four-hour modern-dress mash-up of ‘Henry IV’ parts one and two. Truly not to be missed, and if McKellen can get through a four-hour-play then you certainly can. Noël Coward Theatre, Apr 1-Jun 22. Book tickets here.   Photo: Johan PerssonBrian Cox   2. Long Day’s Journey Into Night After becoming a global superstar playing one flawed patriarch, ‘Succession’ stalwart and all-round acting legend Brian Cox cashes in the newfound heights of his fame to tackle another. ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ is, of course

‘Six’ (pictured), the sassy West End show about the wives of Henry VIII, is probably the biggest Brit musical theatre success story of the last ten years. A clever, audacious idea bound to a tight 80-minute runtime and executed in shades of slick modern pop, it famously premiered at the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and over the next few years went supernova, working its way up through various venues to its current home at the Vaudeville Theatre – where it’s still packing ’em in. Creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss have been in no hurry to follow ‘Six’ up: they’ve been busy breaking it on Broadway, where it’s also a hit (they’re probably both minted now). Moss did direct a well-received revival of ‘Legally Blonde’ at the Open Air Theatre in 2022, but that’s been it for extra stuff. Until now. Finally, we’re about to see if lightning can strike twice with the announcement of the pair’s second show, ‘Why Am I So Single?’. Following the romantic exploits of two best friends who can’t find love despite their heroic dedication to the apps, it promises a look at twenty-first century romance tied to ‘epic pop and musical-inspired songs’.  We’ll see how it is when it opens at the West End’s Garrick Theatre this summer, but it certainly has the air of probably appealing to the same girls/gays night out crowd as its predecessor, promising a relatable modern attitude, a music style not stuck in the 1950s, and a stripped down cast and running time.  ‘Why Am I So Single?‘ is booking at th

James Corden. Two words that can strike fear into even the stoutest of hearts. But while the chronically overexposed UK sitcom star and US chatshow host may not be the hippest gunslinger in town, there’s little denying that his two previous stage outings were stone-cold classics: he was in the original cast of Alan Bennett’s epochal ‘The History Boys’, and then returned to the National Theatre a few years later to head up the riotous global comedy smash ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’. Subsequently, his career took off in the US and he essentially became too famous as a talk show host to find time for theatre. But he’s re-engaged with screen acting in recent years, and with his eight-year-run on ‘The Late, Late Show’ now wrapped up it’s not a surprise at all to find him on stage again. ‘The Constituent’ is a new drama by veteran writer Joe Penhall, best known for his classic play ‘Blue/Orange’ and the Netflix series ‘Mindhunter’. Co-starring the wonderous Anna Maxwell Martin (‘Motherland’ etc), the Matthew Warchus-directed play is an examination of British disillusionment with politicians. It will star Maxwell Martin as a hard-working backbench MP who is sorely tested by the demands of a constituent in a state of crisis.  Corden is best known as a comic actor and he’ll presumably have a chance to flex those muscles, though at the same time, the show description actually sounds pretty serious – we’ll find out more in June when ‘The Constituent’ opens. ‘The Constituent’ is at the Old Vi

The National Theatre has a hit on its hand with ‘Nye’, Tim Price’s new play about founder of the NHS Aneurin Bevan, which stars national treasure Michael Sheen as the iconic Labour politician. Although the play is, frankly, pretty weird in places – there’s a big song and dance number at one point – and deliberately avoids the type of sentimentality about the NHS that can creep into the national discourse, it also never lets you forget that it was Bevan’s signature achievement. The play is bookended by scenes set in hospital, and even when hopping through time to Bevan’s childhood and his time squaring up to Winston Churchill in the Houses of Commons the set is styled like a hospital. It’s natural then that NHS staff should get a crack at seeing it, and thus it will prove on April 23 – St George’s Day – with 400 NHS workers having been invited to see it live on stage that night to watch the show that will simultaneously be broadcast into cinemas as part of the NT Live programme. London not being the entirety of the UK, a further 1,000 tickets have been given out to NHS workers to watch the live broadcast in Vue cinemas across the country. Says Rufus Norris, NT artistic director and director of ‘Nye’: ‘I am honoured to extend a heartfelt invitation to NHS workers to share in this powerful story. This moment epitomises the National Theatre’s commitment to extending the reach of theatre to audiences wherever they are, both at the South Bank and through National Theatre Live. In c