Andrzej Lukowski

The 78th annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe is upon us, with over 3,000 shows taking over more than 250 venues in the Scottish capital. From theatre and comedy to art, music and dance, the Fringe is pretty much Christmas for culture lovers. Then, there’s the Edinburgh International Festival happening at the same time, which brings pioneering theatre, music and dance shows from across the globe. From the stars of tomorrow to some startlingly big names, there’s literally something for everyone – and plenty left over besides. But with so much to choose from, what’s actually worth your time? The Time Out team can only hope to scratch the surface, really, but we know which bits of the surface look the most promising and we'll be out on the ground reviewing shows across the Edinburgh Fringe and Edinburgh International Festival. Get stuck in, have a read, and add a few more shows to your ‘must-see’ list. We’ll be updating this page from August 1. RECOMMENDED:  Your ultimate guide to the Edinburgh Festival FringeThe 21 best comedy shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025The 20 best theatre shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025.

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

August is here and the Edinburgh Fringe casts a long, obliterating shadow: virtually every gigging comic in the country has headed to Scotland and there is, frankly, not a lot going on in London this month.  But there are a handful of fun things nontheless, from the chance to catch James Acaster’s new work-in-progress to the opportunity to catch Patti Harrison’s insane sounding new show before its belated move to the Fringe.   It’s also worth saying: watch this space. At the moment we have no idea who the buzzy new comics will be at this year’s Fringe, but we will in a couple of weeks and the odds are some of them will have last minute London dates locked in for the last week of August. 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.

Borough is known for having one of the best food markets in the world, but it’s also home to some seriously good restaurants as well as the brilliant market. The new Borough Yards development – just next to this historic, edible wonderland – is where you’ll find some of the latest spots to have a sit-down feast, including west African restaurant Akara. If you’re off to SE1 and your stomach is rumbling, then consult this list so you can hunt down all our favourite spots for a fabulous feed, from contemporary Greek classics at Oma and Pyro, to pasta at Padella, and classy French cuisine at Camille.  RECOMMENDED: The best restaurants in London Bridge. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

Hello, and welcome to the Time Out theatre reviews round up. From huge star vehicles and massive West End musical to hip fringe shows and more, this is a compliation of all the latest London reviews from the Time Out theatre team, which is me – Time Out theatre editor Andrzej Łukowski – plus our freelance critics. RECOMMENDED New theatre openings in London this month. A-Z of West End shows.

Six. Weeks. Or thereabouts. The school summer holidays are the greatest test of any parent’s logistical mettle, seeing as they’re longer than mozt people’s entire quota of annual leave. And this isn’t America where you can just send your children off to a camp all summer and forget about them. We have to keep our kids entertained. So good luck with that! And I mean it: my name’s Andrzej, and I’m Time Out’s theatre and kids editor, and as a parent of two I have to deal with this nonsense every year myself. So to help you organise and plan, here are my picks of the best new and temporary London family events this summer, from theatre shows to dinosaurs, exhibitions to more dinosaurs (there are a lot of dinosaurs around this year). When are the school summer holidays 2025 Officially the 2025 London school summer holidays run Wednesday July 23 to Friday August 29. But many schools will break on Monday 21 July, and virtually all of them will add a teacher training day or two on at the start of September. What to do in London in the school summer holidays 2025 See below for a list of new and temporary kids’ summer holiday activities.  For evergreen ideas for things to do with children in the capital, see our 50 Things To Do With Kids In London. For summer things to do with younger kids, see our 30 Things To Do With Babies and Toddlers in London. For summer things to do with teenagers, see our Best Things To Do With Teenagers In London 2025. For general London summer ideas see our

Sandwiched between the twin food heavens of Borough Market and Bermondsey Street, and with an abundance of restaurant gems, you’ll struggle to eat badly in SE1. An area of London with something for every taste and budget, eating around London Bridge is like a backpacking world tour these days, and our selection includes picks from a huge range of cuisines. Look here for a page dedicated to the best restaurants in and by Borough Market and enjoy our favourite restaurants near London Bridge. RECOMMENDED: The best restaurants in Bermondsey. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines.

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

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

Teenagers are pretty much the most complicated demographic going: it’s safe to say that a 13-year-old and a 19-year-old will have little in common with regards to how they want to spend their weekends. And indeed for that matter, neither will any two given teens of the same age. What unites them, however, is that they’ve more or less moved on from classic kids’ days out: most kids’ theatre is pitched too young for them; the dinosaurs section in the Natural History Museum is unlikely to hold quite the same wonders it once did; the playground is simply a place to annoyingly hog the swings and gossip. Of course, as they get older teenagers are increasingly capable of finding their own fun, and Time Out’s many guides to doing stuff in London as an adult are increasingly applicable. Nonethless, while they live under their parents’ roofs, said parents will probably still have some responsibility for entertaining and amusing their offspring. And that’s what this guide is mostly intended to be: a series of ideas for family trips out that won’t prove too cringe for over-12s, combined with some more wholesome ideas for things teens might like to do together than ‘drink White Lightning in the local park’.    Alternatively, see our full 50 things to do in London with kids

Hello – I'm Time Out’s theatre editor and also a parent, something that has considerable overlap in London, a city with three dedicated kids theatres and where pretty much every other theatre might play host to a child-friendly show. Listing everything would be a slightly psychotic undertaking and probably not that illuminating, as many kids’ shows are only on for a day or two. So instead this round up forcusses on the flagship shows at London’s kids theatres – that’s the Little Angel, the Unicorn and Polka – plus other major shows aimed at or suitable for youngsters. On the whole, pre-school and primary children are the age groups best served specifically, because secondary school aged teenagers can generally see adult theatre perfectly well (and will indeed often be made to do so!). So while the odd teen focussed show will make it in here, if you’re looking for something to do with teens why not consult our reviews page or what to book list. Our London kids’ theatre page normally contains information for all the main children’s shows running in London theatres this month and next month, and is broken down into three categories. Theatre for all the family is suitable for any age, including adults without children. Theatre for older children is specifically aimed at school-age children and teenagers. Theatre for babies, pre-schoolers and younger children does what the title suggests, and also includes shows suitable for younger school-age children. See also:50 things to do i

London’s theatre scene is the most exciting in the world: perfectly balanced between the glossy musical theatre of Broadway and the experimentalism of Europe, it’s flavoured by the British preference for new writing and love of William Shakespeare, but there really is something for everyone. Between the showtunes of the West End and the constant pipeline of new writing from the subsidised sector, there’s a whole thrilling world, with well over 100 theatres and over venues playing host to everything from classic revivals to cutting-edge immersive work. This rolling list is constantly updated to share the best of what’s coming up and currently booking: these choices aren’t the be-all and end-all of great theatre in 2025, but they are, as a rule, the biggest and splashiest shows coming up, alongside intriguing looking smaller projects.   They’re shows worth booking for, pronto, both to avoid sellouts but to get the cheaper tickets that initially go on sale for most shows but tend to be snapped up months before they actually open. Please note that the prices quoted are the ‘official’ prices when the shows go on sale – with West End shows in particular it can unfortunately be the case that if they sell well, expensive dynamic prices can be triggered. Want to see if these shows live up to the hype? Check out our theatre reviews. Check out our complete guide to musicals in London.  And head over here for a guide to every show in the West End at the moment.

I promise I won’t go on about this too much, but I think I may have been responsible for The Sun’s bizarre 2023 attack on Lorna Rose Treen, in which the tabloid accused the rising sketch star of killing comedy with ‘wokery’. I was on the panel for the Dave Joke of the Fringe award that year, and I nominated Treen’s harmless – and by no stretch of the imagination woke – gag that won that year’s award (it revolved around ‘cheetah’ and ‘cheater’ being homophones). So unless another panellist also nominated it then that was me - sorry Lorna! This isn’t simply a flex because Treen has a new show, but because within a few minutes of it starting she very amusingly breaks with its Americana theme to address the Sun ‘incident’ – she has the article printed out to show us – and to declare that her intent this time is to kill theatre as well. 24 Hour Diner People isn’t really a theatre show, but it’s certainly notably higher concept than its predecessor Skin Pigeon. It follows a series of oddball characters at a quintessentially American diner – possibly at some point in the ‘80s – with Treen playing most roles and audience members being dragooned in to tackle the rest.  It is a huge amount of fun, in large part for the same reason Skin Pigeon was: Treen tackles the bizarre series of characters – from our daydreaming waitress host to a trucker with really long arms to a bizarrely kinky schoolgirl – with total conviction, and a palpable fondness for the world she’s referencing. With my t

The curiously terse title Relay seems calibrated to deflect from the fact that this is the second solo Fringe show from Welsh comic Leila Navabi, whose 2023 debut Composition was billed in the more traditional way of having her name next to it in the title. Not that she’s hiding her involvement, more that she seems to be determinedly pushing the ‘theatre’ side of a somewhat generically ambiguous storytelling show that’s co-produced by Sherman Theatre.  I raise this because on the performance I saw it was the more traditional stand-up style bits at the beginning where Navabi seemed to struggle – the audience was supportive but she didn’t quite seem to know how to work them; she needs a bit more confidence in her material. I think she was thrown by the fact she began proceedings by accidentally falling into a bank of chairs, which was obviously unfortunate but also fundamentally amusing and surely something she could have had fun with. But if the sense of nervousness never quite abates, it certainly diminishes, and Relay is basically lovely.  The Elan Isaac-directed show concerns Navabi and her partner – also a ‘brown’ female Welsh stand-up – and Navabi’s account of their efforts to conceive, a process that involved spending a lot of money at a fertility clinic before concluding they had no choice but to go for a rather more budget, rather more DIY option. With a melodica strapped around her neck for virtually the entire show, Navabi delivers this as a mix of wryly self-depreca

The story of the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland must be like catnip to James Graham, who has become the pre-eminent playwright in the country by writing niche dramas about unfathomably British subjects and unerringly striking box office gold. The 2008 financial crash (does anyone still call it the credit crunch?) has long been documented in drama: Lucy Prebble’s surreal breakthrough play ENRON emerged as early as 2009, while Stefanno Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy offered a more oblique take in 2013. The British end of things has largely been ignored by dramatists: you’re clearly not going to get an American playwright writing about the Royal Bank of Scotland, and for British writers the fact our nation saw RBS’s collapse first hand perhaps left it less in need of an urgent response. Now, though, it’s 17 years on: high time the tale was told properly. And what a tale Graham has cooked up: if you were worried there wouldn’t be enough material for one play, then the problem with Make It Happen is that there’s actually material for at least three.  One is a sweeping historical drama about the close knit, hidebound world of Edinburgh banking over the last three centuries.  One is about Adam Smith, the Scottish godfather of capitalism itself, here played by the great Brian Cox in what amounts to a juicy supporting role. And then there’s the ‘main’ plot, which follows the now infamous Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin, a dour Paisley accountant with no formal banking qualifications wh

This enjoyable if extremely lightweight musical is based around a substantially made-up version of the complicated relationship that existed between tech titans Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Written by Jordan Allen-Dutton, Erik Weiner and Hal Goldberg – aka the US team behind previous Fringe favourite The Bomb-itty of Errors – the songs are for the most part melodious but flyaway baubles. But there’s no denying that silly as it all all, the whole thing comes together when our geek heroes break into rhyme: an obnoxious rap-rock number in which the newly hip Microsoft founder declares ‘I’m Bill Gates, bitch’ is unfortunately very funny, and the climactic rap battle between the two protagonists is basically worth the admission in and of itself. Kane Oliver Parry is very enjoyable as Jobs, here portrayed as a slick, self-absorbed hippie who shamelessly steals from and manipulates others to help him design products that people think are cool rather than ones they actually need. It’s to the credit of Parry that he emerges as the hero of the story without it ever descending into weird fawning – this Jobs is an incorrigible rogue rather than an out-and-out bastard, and his amorality credibly feels like an extension of his free-love philosophy. Dan Buckley’s Gates comes across less well, a bullied geek who is driven into the heights of megalomania by a cocktail of vast success an resentment that Jobs remains forever cooler than him.  Despite Gates’s more benign latterday image, the show’

Ultra-nerdy standup Kieran Hodgson – a man who once did an entire hour about the 1975 European referendum – recently had a cameo role in notorious superhero flop The Flash. In fact he spoke the first line in the movie. This is so prodigiously improbable that it’s no wonder it’s the jumping off point for his new show, Voice of America.  In fact the very English Hodgson makes relatively little hay out of his turn as the character dubbed Sandwich Guy, the drawling American barista who opens the doomed Ezra Miller flicks. Of course he talks about it a lot, and is as bemused as anyone that it happened. But there’s no behind-the-scenes goss or analysis of the film itself. Rather, some initial feedback over the quality of his accent is used as a jumping off point to explore his relationship with America as a whole. To a certain extent the point of Hodgson’s unswervingly high concept stand-up shows is that they’re not especially relatable: he’s an intensely warm and likeable performer, but he pursues odd obsessions, in an eccentric manner. His last, Made in Scotland, followed his relocation to Glasgow and his attempt to immerse himself in Scottish culture and language to such a ludicrous degree that it seemed calculated to wind up anyone Scottish in the audience (which is quite a lot of people at the Edinburgh Fringe). Voice of America, though, is very relatable: it’s about the complicated relationship we all have with the US, a country that we tend to be drawn to in our youths then

This review is from the National Theatre in 2024. The Importance of Being Earnest transfers to the West End with a new cast that includes Olly Alexander as Algernon and Stephen Fry as Lady Bracknell. Describing Oscar Wilde’s most famous play as ‘camp’ is a bit like describing water as ‘a liquid’. Hell yes it’s camp - Wilde’s story of two wisecracking bachelors getting into insanely complicated hijinks in the nominal name of the pursuit of women is frivolous, absurd and about as heterosexual as Jonathan Bailey’s turn in the movie Wicked. And yet it has to be said that Max Webster’s production is – by any reasonable standards – unusually, prodigiously, extremely gay. Current Doctor Who leading man Ncuti Gatwa plays Algernon – one of said bachelors – and begins the show in a pink ballgown, miming playing piano while the rest of the cast dance around him in matching black tie and moustaches. And things do not get noticeably straighter. On a set from Rae Smith that looks like a lysergically enhanced take on rep production cliche – the garden scene has a kind of Midsommar vibe – Algernon and his BFF Jack (Hugh Skinner) are played as gay men, as opposed to the usual ‘witty and English’. Okay, being flamboyant, effeminate and sharply dressed doesn’t necessarily mean anything about anyone’s sexuality, but this production is not exactly subtle: early on Algernon bursts into hysterical laughter when Kean’s more guileless Jack suggests that he’s thinking of getting married to a woman.  T

Chef Yiannis Mexis’s new Borough venture Pyro is a contemporary Greek restaurant that both defies and embraces neighbourhood taverna cliches. The food is hardly rustic simplicity or beholden to tradition, but it’s rarely overly fiddly, and ultimately comes down to big flame-cooked flavours and robustly fresh ingredients.  Fire cooked food that’s flavourful and unintimidating Pyro has heavy beachside vibes, which is very bold in Southwark but it carries it off in large part because of its surprisingly enormous outdoor area. There is a fully indoor restaurant bit which I completely failed to go into, but is presumably the main focus of Pyro during the colder months. But when I visited at the tail end of a mini heatwave there was no question of going inside – we went for the covered section of the vast terrace, which basically isn’t afraid to look like a giant straw-roofed beach hut. That it doesn’t fall over the precipice of novelty is due to the mostly excellent food. Seeking to bring the Aegean beach to the centre of London, you can drop a lot of money on seafood here: £85 for a whole ‘flame kissed’ lobster or £105 for a 1.5kg Cornish brill. But it’s actually a fairly broad spectrum survey of Greek-influenced cuisine, and you don’t have to spend big to get something nice. In fact the best thing we ate was quite possibly the £10 crudites platter. A world away from the sorry cucumber and carrot batons that blight every British childhood, this was a pristine plate of some of th

To children of a certain age – primary schoolers, basically – there is no word more magical than ‘Legoland’. When they’re older they’ll move on to more adrenalised theme parks, but for now the synergy between the world’s most beloved toy range and a large, inventive selection of age appropriate rides is just unbeatable. Throw in the Lego themed hotel accommodation and it’s pretty much reception-to-tweenage nirvana.  There’s also still a sense of there being something a bit special about Legoland Windsor: after decades of the original Danish park being the only one, this was the second, and even if a glut of additional parks followed globally, it never feels like you’re stepping into an overworked franchise. What are the prices like at Legoland Windsor Resort? To get this out of the way with, one thing the park very much has in common with the toys is that it can be hysterically expensive: the hotel rooms are a lot of fun for kids, but they’re not cheap and the food throughout the park is aggressively overpriced for uniformly average quality. One night in the Castle Hotel plus meals for a family of four will easily clear a £500 mark that you don’t in any way need to spend if you’re coming from London. Of course your kids really will love it: the hotel includes an in room treasure hunt, a PS4, plus access to various fun-filled, brick-tastic play areas: it’s your money. But they will unequivocally have a good time without it.   When can I visit Legoland Windsor Resort? It’s op

In the second of Aussie author Aaron Blabey’s kids’ graphic novel series The Bad Guys, the titular crew of antihero animals decide to prove to the world that they are now reformed characters by… rescuing some chickens.  I don’t want to spoil the bizarre places its film counterpart goes to, but let’s just say that in Dreamworks’ The Bad Guys 2, the source material has been largely left behind in favour of a plot of such Byzantine maximalism it makes the Roger Moore Bond films look like models of gritty restraint. That’s fair because Pierre Perifel’s films are as much a celebration of classic heist movies as they are the original books. And The Bad Guys 2 is the heist movie cranked up to at least a bajillion, and involves the now reformed Mr Wolf, Mr Snake et al getting blackmailed into One Last Job – something they’re not entirely opposed to given they’re having a miserable time going straight.  They’re framed for a series of robberies they didn’t commit and manipulated into helping a trio of new animal criminals collect a rare metal called McGuffinite (yes really) to further their leader Miss Kitty Kat’s extremely insane scheme. It makes the Roger Moore Bond films look like models of restraint It’s overstuffed: the gang’s absurdly over-complicated heists are a joy to watch in isolation but occasionally tenuously worked in. There are simply too many characters: Richard Ayoade’s mad scientist guinea pig Professor Marmalade was a great villain in the first film, but his random p

See our review of Burlesque the Musical here.  

First announced aeons ago and presumably costing a bob or two to create, this Elvis Presley-based immersive show is a slick affair, heartfelt in its admiration for The King. It’s by Layered Reality, who have had notable immersive successes with the ongoing adaptation of The War of the Worlds and the Tower of London-based The Gunpowder Plot. It’s also somewhat structurally eccentric, comes with a difficult-to-defend ticket price, and – when I visited anyway – clearly suffered from its audience not being crystal clear about what it involved from the off. The hook is Elvis’s legendary 1968 comeback TV special, wherein the man who changed music forever in the ‘50s successfully blew off the schmaltzy MOR cobwebs that had engulfed his ‘60s career and showed the world that old fire again. What does an Elvis superfan make of the King’s new London immersive experience? But there’s quite a bit of other stuff before that. For the first half it’s essentially straight up theatre. We’re cast as audience members for the comeback special, who have been rounded up at the last minute after Elvis’s infamous manager Tom Parker failed to distribute any tickets himself (this really happened). A nervous Elvis hasn’t played live in seven years and is refusing to leave his dressing room (this also happened). And Elvis’s BFF from childhood Sam Bell has randomly turned up and offered to help talk his old pal out of his room.  This did not happen, although Bell was a real figure. But his arrival provid

This sparky indie musical about a lonely Irish schoolboy who forms a band to escape a drab ’80s Dublin adolescence is a charming affair that reunites the architects of offbeat musical smash Once, as playwright Enda Walsh again adapts a movie by Irish filmmaker John Carney. My gut instinct is that Rebecca Taichman’s production is a bit too all over the shop to really take off in the way Once did, but it’s an enjoyably lo-fi clutter, a show that seesaws between kitchen-sink bleakness and joyfully preposterous singing sequences with total earnestness. It’s 1985 and Conor’s family are down on their luck: their comfortable middle-class lives have been squeezed and constricted by the depression gripping Ireland, which has left his architect dad with no work. Conor’s fee-paying private school has to go; he’s instead sent to strict, priest-run local school Synge Street. He’s not exactly delighted by this. But after spying an enigmatic girl – Grace Collender’s Raphina – in a phone booth outside the school, Conor blurts out that he’s in a band in an effort to impress her. Cue a frantic scrabble to form one. And whaddayaknow: advised by his agoraphobic music geek older brother Brendan (Adam Hunter), Conor soon discovers he’s a pretty damn good songwriter. Taken too literally, Sing Street defies sense. Conor’s titular band seems to be effortlessly polished straight away and yet they never appear to gig or earn money, they just make little low-budget music videos on a camcorder and then m

UPDATE: Following the announcement back in June that the National Theatre’s production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest would transfer to London’s West End with Olly Alexander replacing original star Ncuti Gatwa, full casting has today been announced. The huge news is that massive Brit star Stephen Fry will make one of his rare stage appearances: his first since the Globe’s Twelfth Night back in 2012. He’ll play the play’s infamous old battle-axe Lady Bracknell: very different casting to Sharon D Clarke, who played the role at the NT, but having the role played by a man is not without precedent (David Suchet did it in the West End a while back). They’ll be joined by an excellent cast that includes Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Jack Worthing, Hugh Dennis as Rev. Canon Chasuble, Shobna Gulati as Miss Prism, Kitty Hawthorne as Gwendolen Fairfax, Jessica Whitehurst as Cecily Cardew and Hayley Carmichael as Merriman/Lane. Photo: Danny KasiryeOlly Alexander Ncuti Gatwa’s time on Doctor Who proved to be pretty brief. But he didn’t put his feet up in the gap between his two seasons – theatre was his first love and he got straight back on that stage last Christmas to star in the National Theatre’s hallucinogenically camp take on Oscar Wilde’s classic The Importance of Being Earnest, the first the NT had staged since the ’80s. The Max Webster-directed production was a roaring great hit and now it’s set to transfer to the West End, replacing Mischief Theatre’s The Comedy A

August is, hands down, the slowest month of the year for theatre in London. Lots of venues are closed, lots of people have buggered off to the Edinburgh Fringe – including us! – there are weeks in September with more openings than the whole of August. But still: this is London, and there’s a non-negligible amount of cool summer stuff happening, from a starry West End debut for cult show Every Brilliant Thing to the long-awaited return of Secret Cinema. Here, then, is the very best of the month. The best new London theatre openings in August 2025 Photo: Oliver RosserAmbika Mod 1. Every Brilliant Thing What is it? Duncan Macmillan’s much-loved depression monologue Every Brilliant Thing has been a cult hit across the world, translated into every language from Arabic to Mandarin. The drama about an unnamed protagonist compiling a gigantic list of everything good about the world always seemed too intimate for the West End – but finally here it comes in a supercharged production that deploys a wild array of celebrities to take turns performing it over the course of its run: Lenny Henry, Ambika Mod, Sue Perkins, Minnie Driver plus Johnny Donahoe, its original performer and co-creator.  @sohoplace, Aug 1-Nov 8. Book tickets here. Image: Feast Creative 2. Brigadoon What is it? Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon is widely regarded as one of the great 20th century musical scores: it’s just a shame about the plot, which originally revolved around some American game hunters stumbling across

Playwrights usually want to flex their range after their first big hit. But it’s to the credit of Suzie Miller that she cares so much about the issues explored in her smash Prima Facie that she’s come up with a follow up that you have to at least describe as ‘a companion piece’.  Both Prima Facie and Inter Alia are named after legal terms, both are about high-achieving female members of the legal profession, and while Prima Facie was a monologue and Inter Alia is a three-hander, both have a huge-scale female role at their centre that makes them the perfect vehicle for a screen star looking to scratch the stage itch. And so both have had Justin Martin-directed UK premieres starring major celebrities: Jodie Comer made her stage debut in Prima Facie, while Rosamund Pike treads the boards for the first time in years in Inter Alia. The most crucial similarity, however, is not entirely apparent from the first half hour or so of Inter Alia, which is basically an extended sequence of Pike’s high court judge Jessica frenziedly girl bossing as she juggles her extremely high-powered job with a busy social life and being a mum to vulnerable teen Harry (Jasper Talbot). It’s a breathless performance from Pike, who crests and surges from neuroticism to icy confidence. It’s draining: there’s barely room for us or her to breathe, and a sequence where she sings Shania Twain’s ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ in a karaoke club feels like the conclusion of an extended intro basically designed to let

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

As Time Out’s theatre editor I tend to be responsible for most of our immersive coverage as well, but I wasn’t able to make the big opening night for London’s long gestating new Elvis Presley experience Elvis Evolution. So rather than see it with celebrities or invited guests, I ended up joining one of the first public performances of the show. I didn’t go in with any particular expectations of what it would involve and personally I had a decent time, with some reservations. But I thought the first half was perfectly enjoyable: slick, reasonably informative, and I didn’t have any problem with it focussing on Elvis’s childhood best friend Sam Bell as a way to take a different look at The King. 🎤 The official Time Out review of Elvis Evolution. The focus of the second half is Elvis’s legendary 1968 comeback TV special. Stood milling around waiting for the ‘live performance’, it was here that I first realised a portion of the audience was on the cusp of mutiny: a lot of them clearly hadn’t enjoyed the first half, and were muttering to each other that they were hoping for something spectacular from the concert section, with at least two groups in my earshot referencing the blockbuster ABBA Voyage concert experience in Stratford.  Elvis Evolution is in fact nothing like ABBA Voyage, or not much like it: we get a trio of live musicians playing along to highlights of the 1968 TV special, which have apparently been sharpened up digitally for the big screen but basically look like a

The omens were not good for this stage musical adaptation of the 2010 Christina Aguilera screen vehicle Burlesque. Foremost among them: it debuted in Manchester and Glasgow last year, but most of its creative team was summarily axed and replaced by one Todrick Hall, an erstwhile American Idol contestant who the bumpf describes as ‘one of the most high-profile and prolific storytellers in the world’. I am slightly exaggerating here. The hugely talented British set designer Soutra Gilmour, for instance, was replaced by Nate Bertone, another American. And Hall was already involved. But he now directs, choreographs and has written most of the songs, plus he stars in not one but two roles. Oh, and while the book is officially written by Steven Antin – who wrote and directed the film – it’s hard not to see the hand of Tod in the larky, metatheatrical script, which is not only very different in tone to the film, but also gives all the larkiest, most metatheatrical lines to Hall’s brace of characters. Anyway, Burlesque isn’t totally inept, but it’s ultimately just bludgeoning, a clangorous three-hour pantomime on steroids that makes the original film look like a model of tastefully plotted restraint. It feels like being trapped in a warzone Jess Folley is Ali, a young lass from Iowa with an impressive pair of lungs, her virtuosic singing encouraged by her sassy choirmaster Miss Loretta (Hall). One day she discovers that her birth mother Tess (US cabaret star Orfeh) is still alive an

Although not nearly as prestigious as the two ‘main’ comedy awards at the annual Edinburgh Festival Fringe – that’s best show and best newcomer – Dave’s Joke of the Fringe is the one that’s tended to grab the most column inches over the years: it’s voted for by the public, who actually get to see the jokes written down before voting on them, and there’s much more reportage on it because it’s easier to report on a one-line joke than an hourlong light concept comedy show. The award has proven somewhat controversial over the years: the only jokes that really work in the format are often quite old fashioned puns and one liners, and it’s rare that the winner has much bearing on the prevailing comedy zeitgeist. And the fact the winners can be quite naff is often used as a stick to beat the festival as a whole: Lorna Rose Treen’s 2023 show Skin Pigeon (pictured) was an unusually hip winner but the gag that took the prize wasn’t very representative, didn’t really translate to being written down and caused a mini tabloid scandal. Still, it’s good exposure for both comedians and festival and if it’s imperfect it is basically a good laugh.  So it’s a shame that Joke of the Fringe is not happening this year. According to UKTV, which owns comedy Freeview channel Dave (technically now U&Dave), the award is officially just ‘resting’ this year and could come back, though in practise it seems unclear why they’d randomly can it this year and not next. Presumably the reason is purely financial:

Somehow still just 21 years old despite having been a serious rising star for what feels like at least a decade, Joe Locke long ago proved there was more to him than Heartstopper, the TV show that made his name. From his playfully enigmatic turn in Marvel’s Agatha All Along to an excellent stage debut as an embittered teen in a dystopian future in the Donmar Warehouse’s The Trials to a stint on the recent Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, he’s very much at that phase in his career where everything looks charmed. And as he continues his ascent to the big time, here comes his West End debut, which we can exclusively reveal the venue and dates for. The play is Clarkston by US playwright Samuel D Hunter, best known over here for writing the screenplay to Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-nominated  The Whale. It’s had fringe success in the States but it now gets its biggest outing to date as it plays a nine-week stint at the Trafalgar Theatre this autumn, in a production helmed by American director Jack Serio. Described as a ‘modern frontier story’, Clarkston will star Locke as Jake, a young man who heads out to the American West in an effort to rediscover himself, in a journey that obliquely reflects Lewis and Clark’s great expedition. He’ll co-star with fellow rising star Ruaridh Mollica, plus the wondrous Sophie Melville. It’s a very promising looking show from an actor whose early stage roles have so far been as good as his screen ones. Clarkston is at Trafalgar Theatre, Sep 17-Nov 22

It will shock almost nobody to learn that Cirque du Soleil is returning to the Royal Albert Hall in 2026: pandemic aside, the esteemed neo circus troupe has made the grand Victorian performance venue its home at the start of the year for three decades now. Here’s everything you need to know about its 2026 run. Which show will Cirque du Soleil be bringing to London in 2026? That would be Ovo, its insect-themed odyssey, last performed at this address in 2018. Our review from back then commented that it combined a somewhat bewildering comic story about flies with jaw-dropping feats of acrobatics: in other words, classic Cirque du Soleil. When is Cirque duo Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall in 2026? Officially it’s January 9 to February 1, and has been described as a ‘limited four week run’. Historically every single Cirque show for at least the last decade has extended its run into March at some point in the autumn. No guarantee this one will, but you’d be mad to bet against it. When do tickets go on sale?  A general on sale begins Friday 18 July, but tickets are on sale to members now – membership is just a case of signing up for free. As above, there is a very good chance there will be an extension and that the tickets for this will go on sale in the autumn. You can purchase tickets from Friday 18 July here. How much do tickets cost? Tickets cost between £44 and an eye-watering £324, although the really high prices include food and hospitality (the best seats are around £140. Is

Playwright Duncan Macmillan is the king of the slow burner: his 2011 fringe play Lungs debuted in 2011 in semi-obscurity until eight years later it was revived in a massive Old Vic production starring Matt Smith and Clare Foy.  Now his 2014 play Every Brilliant Thing goes a few years better – finally making its debut in the West End this summer.  The play is a deeply touching, often very funny monologue about an unnamed narrator who has – since childhood – obsessively kept a list of every single thing they think is good about the world (no matter how trivial), initially as a way of cheering their mum up, but later themself. It’s an intimate show about living with depression that has been translated into dozens of languages but has rarely been seen in big theatres. Photo: Oliver Rosser But next month Every Brilliant Thing finally makes the leap to the West End’s newest and most intimate theatre @sohoplace. You’ll be able to see it performed by Jonny Donahoe, who co-created it and has done most previous UK performances. But he’s getting a little celebrity help. Quite a lot, in fact: there will be five performers taking on the the show this time. In August Donahoe and Lenny Henry will be splitting the role (to be clear there will be a single performer per show, with Henry taking on the lion’s share); during September it’ll be Sue Perkins and rising star Ambika Mod; and for just added October dates Henry and Donahoe will return for a bit before Hollywood actor Minnie Driver tak

A new Donmar Warehouse season has been announced and it kicks off pretty sharpish: it seems likely (if unconfirmed) that the playwright Caryl Churchill’s recent decision to withdraw an unnamed play of hers from production at the boutique Covent Garden powerhouse has led to a bit of scrabbling around to shore up the schedule. The schedule would now seem to be shored up, however, kicking off next month with the debut of a new play by the prolific, mercurial Mike Bartlett. Directed by James Macdonald, Juniper Blood (Aug 16-Oct 4) follows Lip and Ruth, a couple who have quit the city to pursue a more ethical life in the country. But what’s the real price of pursuing your dreams in an imperfect world? As you’d imagine for a play that basically starts in a month, it has a full cast already: Terique Jarrett, Hattie Morahan, Nadia Parkes, Jonathan Slinger and Sam Troughton will star. The most intriguing show of the season is an adaptation of Jean Genet’s The Maids (Oct 13-Nov 29) by Kip Williams. Genet’s surrealist class satire is a reasonably regularly performed classic (Jamie Lloyd did it not so long ago) but the really interesting dimension here is Williams. The Australian director is essentially solely known over here for his ultra high tech one-woman take on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (which starred Sarah Snook); next year he’s back in the West End with a similar version of Dracula performed by Cynthia Erivo. Will this be along similar lines? We’re promised a ‘wild

By the standards of any other city, July in London is a pretty damn busy month for theatre. Here, it’s the start of the summer slowdown, with few of the big subsidised venues running a show over the hols, most big new West End shows keeping their powder dry until the autumn, and much of the industry decamping to the Edinburgh Fringe, which this year begins at the very end of the month. Nonetheless, there’s still plenty to keep us going, including loads from the National Theatre which is opening a show in each of its three theatres plus one in the West End. Really, though, there’s only one show on people’s lips at the moment – and it handily takes our number one spot. The best new London theatre openings in July 2025 Photo: Marc BrennerRachel Zegler in rehearsals   1. Evita What is it? If last year was Brat Summer, this one is Balcony Summer. Hollywood star Rachel Zegler’s nightly 9pm-ish performances of ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” in Jamie Lloyd’s revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s finest hour has made headlines around the world thanks to the fact she’s not singing it in the auditorium but on the outside front balcony, to an increasingly large nightly crowd. Even if the rest of it were to prove to be rubbish it deserves the number one slot for such an audacious gesture. But as it’s essentially a reworking of Lloyd’s excellent 2019 Open Air Theatre production, we’re expecting it to be pretty damn good. London Palladium, now until Sep 6. Buy tickets here.   Photo: National T