Andrzej Lukowski

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, classy French cuisine at Camille and seafood at Applebee’s.  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 plus our team of freelance critics. August is a fairly quiet month for London theatre openings so we’ll be posting relatively little here until things get busy again in September. But if you’d like to see reviews of work that’s likely to be coming to London in the near future, then do check out our coverage of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2025. A-Z of West End shows.

Hello – I'm Time Out’s theatre editor and a parent, something that has a lot of overlap in London, a city with three dedicated kids theatres and where pretty much every other theatre might stage a child-friendly show. This round up focusses on the flagship shows at London’s kids theatres – that’s the Little Angel, the Unicorn and Polka – plus other major shows aimed at or suitable for youngsters. On the whole, pre-school and primary children are the age groups best served specifically, because secondary school aged teenagers can generally see adult theatre perfectly well (and will indeed often be made to do so!). So while the odd teen focussed show will make it in here, if you’re looking for something to do with teens why not consult our reviews page or what to book list. Our London kids’ theatre page normally contains information for all the main children’s shows running in London theatres this month and next month, and is broken down into three categories. Theatre for all the family is suitable for any age, including adults without children. Theatre for older children is specifically aimed at school-age children and teenagers. Theatre for babies, pre-schoolers and younger children does what the title suggests, and also includes shows suitable for younger primary school children. See also:50 things to do in London with kids.The best child-friendly restaurants in London.The top 9 museums in London for kids.

There are a hell of a lot of musicals running in London at any given time, from decades-long classics like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera to short-run fringe obscurities, plus all manner of new shows launched every year hoping for long-running glory. Here Time Out rounds up every West End musical currently running or coming soon, plus fringe and off-West End shows that we’ve reviewed – all presented in fabulous alphabetical order. SEE ALSO: How to get cheap and last-minute theatre tickets in London.

What is immersive theatre? A glib buzzword? A specific description of a specific type of theatre? A phrase that has become so diluted that it’s lost all meaning? Whether you call it immersive, interactive or site-specific, London is bursting with plays and experiences which welcome you into a real-life adventure that you can wander around and play the hero in. I’m Andrzej Łukowski, Time Out’s theatre editor, and let me tell you I have run the immersive gamut, from a show where I had to take my clothes off in a darkened shipping container, to successfully bagging tickets to the six-hour Punchdrunk odyssey there were only ever a couple of hundred tickets released, to quite a lot of theatre productions where the set goes into the audience a bit and apparently that counts as immersive. There is a lot of immersive work in London, some of which is definitely theatre, some of which definitely isn’t, some of which is borderline, some of which is but doesn’t want to say it is because some some people are just horrified of the word ‘theatre’.  This page has been around for a while now and gone through various schools of thought, but the one we’ve settled on for now is that the main list compiles every major show in London that could reasonably be described as ‘immersive theatre’, while the bottom list compiles a few of our favouite immersive shows thet you probably wouldn’t describe as theatre though it is, naturally a blurry line. Whatever the case you can mostly only really decide wh

For the last decade or so, TV channel U&Dave has taken it upon itself to crown the ‘best joke’ of the Edinburgh Fringe each year. It proved quite a challenge, given that the arts festival welcomes hundreds of shows and hopeful comics to the city. Its annual competition, the Funniest Joke of the Fringe, named a winner from a competition shortlist drawn up by a panel of comedy critics, before members of the public are asked to pick their three favourite jokes. However, this year U&Dave said the Joke of the Fringe award is ‘resting’ and wouldn’t be happening. Thankfully, production company Need to Know Comedy announced it would revive its (Some Guy Called) Dave Award, which was initially a pandemic-era substitute for Joke of the Fringe where comics were invited to self-submit up to five gags from their show via email for consideration for the £250 prize.  This year’s winner has been announced as Northern Irish comedian Andy Gleeks, whose show Fragments has been performing at the Fringe. Last year, Mark Simmons, who first got into comedy more than a decade ago, took home the award with his snappy one-liner about a ship, taken from his PHB’s Free Fringe show at the Liquid Room Annexe. In 2023, Lorna Rose Treen took home the prize with her gag about an unfaithful zookeeper, which was ranked one of the best by 44 percent of those surveyed. It turns out ‘the best joke’ audiences basically like zingers, one-liners and snappy puns: there’s rarely overlap between the Joke of the Fringe

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.

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

There’s perhaps nothing more magical than seeing a play or musical in the open air, and London is absolutely the city for it. In defiance of the weather gods, our outdoor theatre season now stretches from March to late October: we’re are just that tough. Or at least, optimistic about the weather. Substantially it revolves around a few key theatres, notably Shakespeare’s Globe – open March to October and generally boasting a cheeky outdoor Christmas production – and the delightful Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, which is open late spring to the very end of summer. The former specialises in Shakespeare plays, while the latter has a musical theatre focus. 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.

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.

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 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

Like Hamlet, Twelfth Night is one of those god-tier Shakespeare plays that pops up so much at 'regular’ theatres that it feels relatively underproduced at the Globe. It’s a stretch to say it’s actually not suited to the Bankside playhouse (which is probably something you could say about Hamlet). But this new production feels like an object lesson in what can go wrong with a Globe Twelfth Night. Robin Belfield’s production falls into a very Globe-ish trap of having a lot of fun individual turns but failing to really cohere into a whole that makes much sense. And the lack of set changes leaves it without any sense of place, just groups of characters mucking about in front of Jean Chan’s unhelpfully abstract sun-ray set design. It starts off very well, mind. As Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́’s Viola shipwrecks on Illyria she witnesses a vibrantly weird carnival, equal parts Notting Hill and The Wicker Man. This is Duke Orsino’s court, which is contrasted beautifully with the subsequent appearance of the moribund Olivia and her extravagant mourning garb. These costumes – by Chan again – are wonderful, and give the main parties on the island a sense of identity. But then it loses steam. The carnival-versus-funeral thing never comes to anything and certainly doesn’t result in the sort of joyous, movement-soaked production that is briefly threatened.  Instead it lets itself get bogged down in the various drunks, oddballs and assorted other comic characters in Olivia’s household - which is not a

This review is from 2019. Anansi the Spider returns in 2025.  Anansi the trickster spider went global a long time ago. But Justin Audibert’s inaugural production in charge of the Unicorn takes folklore’s most famous arachnid right back to his roots. Under Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey’s sprawling tree set, performers Afia Abusham, Sapphire Joy and Juliet Okotie file on clutching djembe drums, wearing West African clothes and accents as they launch into a funny, energetic trio of tales. In the first act, Anansi steals the world’s wisdom, only to reflect that this might have been a rather unwise decision; in the second he blags some vegetables from a green, er, fingered snake and cons a series of unfortunate other animals into paying the steep price demanded for the veg; the third hops to modern London – this time Anansi is a chancer who concocts an elaborate scheme to bag himself two dinners and ends up falling flat on his face. The three women divvy up three Anansi roles for a funny and lively show for ages three to seven that’s essentially old-fashioned storytelling, done with pace and care. There are no splashy spider costumes, but they’re not necessary – the young audience get that each woman is a different facet of Anansi. And if it’s mostly about the power of their words, then engaging music and lighting switches up the mood when small attention spans threaten to wander. There’s also some sublime physicality, be that Anansi teetering precariously up the enormous tree set,

This review is from 2015. The Three Little Pigs returns to the Unicorn Theatre in 2025. If your sprogs are freaking out over the fact we’ve still got five months left until panto season  then ‘The Three Little Pigs’ might just tide you over. This pocket-sized musical is a pantomime in all but name: a cheery, cheesy modernised adaptation of a fairy story, plus songs and a minor celebrity – in this case Blue’s Simon Webbe – gamely playing the villain.The ditties are by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe: oddly enough their last West End musical, ‘Betty Blue Eyes’, was also about a pig. In all other respects, though, we’re in much more cheap ’n’ cheerful territory here: the cast of five do everything, and there are moments when you can sense everyone involved longing for some dancers, or a live orchestra, or a set-change.But the young (ages three-plus) target audience aren’t going to know that, and they seem to respond well to a lively, upbeat show packed with jolly – if slight – songs across a spread of genres. And though Drewe’s book shamelessly pads out a story that could be told in about five minutes, his production should keep the adults entertained. The show’s tongue remains firmly in its piggy cheek, with heaps of wantonly awful puns, jokey contemporary references and knowing glances across the fourth wall. Webbe’s Big Bad Wolf is more smoothie than scary, but he and the rest of the cast work hard to win us over, and win us over they do.

This review is from 2021.  This long-gestating musical version of ‘Back to the Future’ – it has literally taken longer to bring to the stage than all three films took to make – is so desperate to please that the producers would doubtless offer a free trip back in time with every ticket purchase if the laws of physics allowed. It is extra as hell, every scene drenched in song, dance, wild fantasy asides, fourth-wall-breaking irony and other assorted shtick. You might say that, yes, that’s indeed what musicals are like. But John Rando’s production of a script by the film’s co-creator Bob Gale is so constantly, clangingly OTT that it begins to feel a bit like ‘Back to the Future’ karaoke: it hits every note, but it does so at a preposterous velocity that often drowns out the actual storytelling.  As with the film, it opens with irrepressible teen hero Marty McFly visiting his friend ‘Doc’ Brown’s empty lab, where he rocks out on an inadvisably over-amped ukulele. Then he goes and auditions for a talent contest, hangs out with his girlfriend Jennifer, talks to a crazy lady from the clock tower preservation society, hangs out with his loser family… and takes a trip 30 years into the past in the Doc’s time-travelling DeLorean car, where he becomes embroiled in a complicated love triangle with his mum and dad. It is, in other words, the same as the film, with only a few minor plot changes (the whole thing about Doc getting on the wrong side of some Libyan terrorists is the most obvi

This review is from 2013. Brace yourself for a shock: ‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Broadway-munching musical is not particularly shocking. Sure, there are ‘fucks’ and ‘cunts’ and gags about baby rape – but most of it is deployed ironically; beneath it all, this is a big-hearted affair that pays note-perfect homage to the sounds and spirit of Broadway’s golden age. The strapping young Latter Day Saints missionaries in ‘The Book of Mormon’ are as cartoonish as any ‘South Park’ character, with the endearing alpha-male woodenness of the ‘Team America’ puppets. In other words, they are loveable, well-intentioned idiots, traversing the globe like groups of pious meerkats, convinced they can convert the heathen through sheer politeness. And if they have doubts, then as Stephen Ashfield’s scene-stealingly repressed Elder McKinley declares in glorious faux-Gershwin number ‘Turn it Off’, ‘Don’t feel those feelings – hold them in instead!’ His advice is ignored by the show’s heroes, narcissistic, highly-strung Elder Price (Gavin Creel) and dumpy, lying Elder Cunningham (Jared Gertner). The pair are sent to Uganda in an effort to convert a village to Mormonism, a religion that essentially tells the penniless villagers how great distant America is. The locals are not keen: Price cracks and unwisely clashes with a crazed local warlord; Cunningham makes up his own version of Mormonism which involves fucking frogs to cure oneself of Aids. ‘The Book of Mormon’ is, above

It’s been years since there was anything secret about Secret Cinema. The immersive entertainment franchise that began life as cool screenings of mystery films in mystery locations has long been too big a deal – and required too big an audience – to leave things to chance. But massive success has left it in danger of looking artistically adrift, locked in a competition with itself to stage ever more lavish extravaganzas based around ever more obvious films.  Its last London show, 2022’s Guardians of the Galaxy: The Live Immersive Experience, awkwardly grafted together a lavish immersive theatre experience with its own self-contained plot and a screening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. The fact you could buy a ticket that didn’t include the film screening felt indicative of where Secret Cinema had found itself.  If the latest doesn’t exactly take things back to basics, then it does at least put the classic 1978 film musical at the heart of the evening: you are going to watch Grease. In fact you’re arguably going to watch Grease twice. In Secret Cinema’s Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical, the original film is shown on large screens that are dotted around the cavernous new Battersea Park venue Evolution, which has been lavishly tricked out to serve as Rydale High, aka the school Grease is set in. But then there are live actors who pop up to take over singing and often talking duties in key scenes, with the film continuing to silently play on the screens. Early on I failed to

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 girlbossing 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 P

There is some very stiff competition, but I think Lerner & Loewe’s Brigadoon might well stand as the maddest musical of all time, certainly in terms of seriously intentioned mainstream work. It’s not been staged in this country for over 30 years and I had wondered if that was because its story of a magic time-hopping Highland village is now considered to be patronising to the Scottish. There probably is an element of that, and top Scots playwright Rona Munro - who has been brought in to partly rewrite the book - has done stuff like have the time-displaced villagers speak Scots Gaelic to each other and suggest they conjured their ‘miracle’ to escape the tumult of the Jacobite Rebellion. They feel (a bit) more like real people. Really though I think Munro is here because she’s a bloody good playwright and her comprehensive rewriting of the story of the two Americans who happen to stumble across Brigadoon gives the absurdly flyweight musical a bit of genuine heft. Originally they were a couple of game-hunting tourists, merrily gunning down wildlife in post-WW2 Scotland. Now it’s set during the war and neurotic Jeff (Cavan Clark) and big, boyish Tommy (Louis Gaunt) are bomber pilots who’ve crashlanded in the wilderness and are now trying to get back to civilization. Tommy is seriously injured. But they’re in luck: today is the one day this century that Brigadoon will appear, and the affable locals take to them in a big way. A rejuvenated Tommy falls madly for wise-beyond-her-year

This simultaneously cuddly and filthy musical two hander from London-based Latin American-centric Alpaqua Theatre Collective concerns Jesús, a sexually confused young man from Peru. Over the course of Jeezus! he acts as our guide to both the Latin American country’s extremely repressive police and social values, and also his own, very specific awakening.  Played by the show’s writer Sergio Antonio Maggiolo, Jesús is very clearly gay, something obvious to everyone but him. But as a confused yet pious adolescent he buries his feelings into his love for his near namesake, Jesus (the magic cross guy). The plot skips around with cartoonish sweetness crossed with essentially blasphemous  naughtiness  - at one point the tender young Jesús tries to purge himself of impure thoughts by sodomising himself with the family’s large wooden crucifix.  Maggiolo plays Jesús with wide-eyed aplomb: it’s the fact they seem to be taking everything so deadly seriously that really makes Jeezus! work. Well, one of the things - the tunes are melodic and funny and as much as the show is very rude, there’s an old fashioned but surprisingly muscular Monty Python-ish streak of humour that keeps it ticking forward. Co-singer/performer Guido Garcia is great in a multitude of roles in Laura KIlleen’s production, from Jesús’s parents (his mum is a sweetie, his dad is basically a Nazi) to – dare I spoil it – the actual Jesus, who his namesake meets via the show’s funniest gag and proceeds to fall literally in

This rousing monologue from actor Jade Franks has been a stonking hit this Fringe, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s an enthusiastically told fish-out-of-water story based on working-class Liverpudlian Franks’s - dare I say it - Legally Blonde-esque experience of going to study at Cambridge. You sense she’s probably taken a few liberties with a narrative that isn’t entirely watertight. But it is, nonetheless, a thoroughly winning hour. Working in a Liverpool call centre, the young Franks is piqued by an encounter with a testy posh customer who assumes she’s thick – so she decides she’ll go to Cambridge, crafts a banging statement, and then boom, off she goes. Clad in falsies and tight gymware, Franks is an ebullient hurricane, winning us to her side by sheer force of personality. I would say it feels like she lays her Eliza Doolittle credentials on a bit thick: the show implies she was going to spend her life working in a call centre until a random phone encounter led to her not only deciding to go to uni, but Cambridge to boot. I’d assume there’s probably a bit more to it than that. A bit of artistic license is fine, and the show really comes into its own when she arrives in Cambridge and gets a job to supplement her studies (a big no no, and the fact ). The students she encounters are initially baffled by her, and she them: different accents, different approaches to money, very different ideas in what ‘going out’ involves (she dresses up, they dress down). What’s great abo

I very much enjoyed this berserk late-night hour from Alice Cockayne, a selection of inscrutable but hilarious character sketches that might offer a sort of anxiety dream interrogation of contemporary femininity, or might just be a load of random shit that exists purely for the lolz. If that sounds hifalutin it’s definitely not: Cockayne has a colossal pair of fake boobs strapped to her for the entire show, starting with the lengthy opening scene in which she plays the deadpan owner of what one assumes to be a brothel, although all her working ‘girls’ – represented by wigs that are sometimes thrust at audience members – seem to be very old and have a lot of problems (‘riddled with neurodiversity’). Other characters include the posh, wildly overbearing Penelope Jane Pendlewitch, whose entire worth is tied up in motherhood and who claims to have had ‘556 children’; a cleaner, also apparently incredibly old, who fills the air with cleaning spray and dirty thoughts; and an Eastern European woman with incredibly long nails.  To be honest, describing the characters doesn’t make them make sense and Licensed. Professional. Trained. Qualified. is one of those balls-trippingly weird shows that would conceivably not work if it were staged for an afternoon crowd (it is currently running in the 10.40pm slot). But while the WTF absurdity is a lot of the point, it’s Cockayne’s eye for layering her oddball creations with details that defines them - the brothel sketch is, among many other thi

On the face of it the question ‘was Kurt Cobain trans?’ is the very definition of ‘no, next one please’. But Emma Frankland’s new show No Apologies addresses the query with a mix of impish cheekiness and impassioned justification. And to be clear the question is not ‘did Kurt Cobain transition?’ or ‘what pronouns did Kurt Cobain use in private?’ but rather whether the Nirvana frontman’s various proclamations about wishing he was born female, wanting breasts, wearing dresses etcetera etcetera could be viewed as amounting to gender dysmorphia. Had he lived longer or in a different time, might this have amounted to something more?  Obviously this is one one level the stuff of very niche Reddit forums. Frankland is not the first to float the theory Cobain was trans, but it is essentially based on selective, academic readings of things he said in public, by people who didn’t actually know him.  Performing in a recreation of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged set, wearing the same outfit Cobain wore for the recording, Frankland repeatedly tells us ‘he was definitely trans’. But it’s with a mischievous grin. Might have been – sure. Definitely – I think the twinkle in Frankland’s eyes puts paid to that.  But her yearning for Cobain to have been a fellow trans woman is the real point of the show. As a teenage Nirvana fan, none of Frankland’s celebrity role models or favourite musicians were trans: it was basically an impossibility back then, and is  hardly a crowded field now. If Cobain had been

When it launched as a pop up at the tail end of 2016, Ballie Ballerson was pretty much the flagship venue for the then relatively novel kidult trend, that is to say grown adults doing children’s activities, generally while drunk. Ballie Ballerson is a ball pit with a bar, and in the mid ’10s it stood as the apex of the London millennial project – the wildly popular original Dalston pop-up location lasted for six months before begetting a permanent Shoreditch location shortly thereafter. ‘What’s going on with Ballie Ballerson in 2025?’ is not a question you hear asked much. And I don’t mean that to be damning – nobody asks about Dans Le Noir or The Mousetrap, and yet they’re still chugging on. It’s certainly not a question I had asked, because aside from an obligatory rolling of my eyes when Ballie B launched, it had never occurred to me that I would actually one day go. While technically a millennial, I had a one-year-old when the bar first opened its door, and I think whatever ironic gymnastics you’re doing in your head to justify a night out there is rendered null and void if you’re also somebody who takes small people to actual ball pits as a matter of course. Then, a couple of months ago, I received an email: Ballie Ballerson, the ball pool for adults, was now letting in children. Not, it should be said, at the same time as any adults other than supervisory parents. But for the duration of the 2025 school summer holidays there are Friday sessions at Ballie: 3.30pm-5pm for

Paddington supremacy continues. The last year has seen the beloved Peruvian bear expand his portfolio to encompass a third film, a permanent London immersive experience, and his own limited edition run of Time Out magazine. Next up: Paddington the Musical. Announced at the tail-end of 2023, the musical has been in development since and this autumn it’ll hopefully be ready for its debut at the Savoy Theatre. Much of the details are the same as was teased previously: it’s still going to be written by playwright Jessica Swale with songs by McFly mainstay and kids’ author Tom Fletcher; the director is still Luke Sheppard, who has admittedly become an even bigger in the world of family friend musicals since the initial announcement thanks to his work on the smash revival of Starlight Express. We don’t officially know a huge amount about the show beyond that, but cast is now (as of August 21) confirmed as Timi Akinyosade (Tony), Amy Booth-Steel (Lady Sloane), Tarinn Callender (Grant), Delilah Bennett-Cardy (Judy Brown), Adrian Der Gregorian (Mr. Brown), Tom Edden (Mr Curry), Brenda Edwards (Tanya), Amy Ellen Richardson (Mrs. Brown), Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (Millicent Clyde), Teddy Kempner (Mr Gruber), Bonnie Langford (Mrs Bird). There are two major points you can deduce from this. The first is that it seems fairly likely the musical will be a straight up remake of the first (2014) Paddington film – evil taxidermist Millicent Clyde is a character that was invented for the movie, a

Of all the many, many London West End ticket sales, none is as big as London Theatre Week. Or as long: a novice might think it might last a solitary week, but that’s absolutely not the case: there are two of them annually (one in March, one in August), they’re each two weeks long, and they almost invariably extend by a week or two. But you don’t care about that! You care about reduced price theatre tickets! And that is where London Theatre Week definitely does live up to the promise of its name.  Here’s the basics. It is now London Theatre Week. It will be London Theatre Week until Sunday August 31. Probably a couple of weeks more if we’re honest, but that’s TBA. During London Theatre Week please go here (note, Time Out is a partner) to book your theatre tickets, as for over 80 of London’s biggest shows there will be a substantial discount. Score some discounts for well established West End smashes like The Lion King, Wicked, Stranger Things, Book of Mormon, Mamma Mia!, Matilda, MJ The Musical, Hamilton or My Neighbour Totoro, with tickets starting at £19. Some of the summer’s biggest short run shows are participating too if you get in quick: see Secret Cinema’s Grease for just £25 a pop, immersive dinosaur show Prehistoric Planet at the Lightroom for £15, and the Open Air Theatre’s revival of classic musical romance Brigadoon for £15. Or get smart and book ahead for the most exciting shows of the autumn season – get a discount on the hits of the future that’ll hopefully sell

Time was, you knew what you were getting with a new show from immersive theatre titans Punchdrunk: it would involve about three hours exploring a sinister, detailed fantasy landscape while wearing a mask and trying to decipher an oblique plot (which plays out multiple times) probably based on classic literature. But after 2022’s huge Trojan War epic The Burnt City, founder Felix Barrett declared he was done with new ‘mask shows’.  He put his money where his mouth was with last year’s superb Viola’s Room. Now the company moves into further uncharted territory – literally and figuratively – with Lander 23, a ‘live action video game’  that casts audience members as an away team exploring an alien planet in an effort to find out why the team before them disappeared. Ahead of Lander 23’s ‘early access launch’ in September, Barrett spills the beans on his legendary company’s latest startling change of shape. ‘Multiplayer stealth game’ sounds very different to the sort of show Punchdrunk has made in the past: how did you come to make a show that’s clearly overtly influenced by video games? ‘I've actually been wanting to do this for about 10 years now: we've had a few misfires with it. But finally we're getting there, it's an amazing thing to be doing on our twenty-fifth anniversary year because I truly believe it's the future.’ Is it still fair to call it immersive theatre? ‘I think what's interesting is that “immersive theatre” was a term applied to us by the media, we didn’t inven

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