Andrzej Lukowski

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

It feels like the summer holidays only just wound up, but soon the kids are going to be off school again, and they’re not going to entertain themselves (not in a good way, anyway). It’s October half-term, and the kids are getting a whole week off – or in certain boroughs, two weeks.  Fortunately, this is London, and there’s a near-infinite number of things for youngsters to do, from enjoying the city’s many kid-friendly museums and galleries that really come into their own when school is out, to enjoying the sundry Halloween activities that our glorious city and its surrounds have to offer. I’m Time Out’s lead kids’ writer – because I have to amuse my own children over the holidays – and here are my top suggestions for the half-term, from brand new exhibitions and plays to your last chance to see a couple of excellent attractions for younger audiences. When is October half-term this year?  This year, London’s October half-term officially falls between Monday October 28 and Friday November 1 (ie they will continuously be off Saturday October 26 to Sunday November 3). Some boroughs such as Bromley have a double half terms that run Monday October 21 to Friday November 1. Good luck with that, Bromley! Whether you’re after some rainy day fun, outdoor play or some budget-friendly free activities for families, London absolutely has you covered. Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this October half-term. 

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 2024, but they are, as a rule, the biggest and splashiest shows coming up, alongside intriguing looking smaller projects.   They’re shows worth booking for, pronto, both to avoid sellouts but to get the cheaper tickets that initially go on sale for most shows but tend to be snapped up months before they actually open. Want to see if these shows live up to the hype? Check out our theatre reviews. Check out our complete guide to musicals in London.  And head over here for a guide to every show in the West End at the moment.

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.

Like ’em, hate ’em or blast ’em 24 hours a day as soon as September starts, there’s no getting away from Christmas songs. And we’re not just talking about Mariah and the Pogues – Christmas songs are an exhaustive genre, from ’40s jingles to 2024 bangers.  On our list, we thought it would be best to include it all. The classics, sure, but some of the more rogue choices too. Like the ‘Eight Days of Christmas’ mash-up by Destiny’s Child, and the underrated classic ‘Dominick the Donkey, the Italian Donkey’. Whatever gets you feeling festive, you’ll find it on this list. Here are the best Christmas songs ever written.  RECOMMENDED:🎤 The best karaoke songs🕺 The best pop songs💧 The best sad songs🎅 The best places to go at Christmas

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

When it comes to music, is there a decade more varied (and stand-out) than the 90s? You’ve got Britney Spears’s girly pop tunes on one end and punky grunge on the other, but then you’ve got the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, Bruce Springsteen and all those other guys somewhere along the spectrum too.  So how does one go about summing up the best tunes from the ’90s? Well, you need a long enough list, for starters (check!), and tunes encompassing a load of different genres (check!). You need to hit the classics, and include a few of the tunes we all forgot about. You might see where we’re going with this, but we’ve got it all right here. Here are the best tunes from the ’90s, picked by our editors. Happy nostalgic listening! RECOMMENDED:🍒 The best pop songs🎤 The best karaoke songs🎉 The best party songs❤️ The best love songs

Afternoon tea is what makes a trip to London truly iconic – even if you already live here. You’ll find some of the best at London’s chicest hotels, restaurants, and art galleries - and we’ve worked out what makes an afternoon tea a truly memorable experience. It'’s not just perfect pastries, the most elegant of teeny tiny cakes and finger sarnies with the crusts cut off, but swish service, the option to have something boozy and bubbly and a picture perfect, characterful room in which to enjoy it all. From The Ritz to Brixton Prison (yes, really) via Caribbean restaurants, the National Gallery and the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, there's truly something for everyone in this round-up of London's best afternoon tea spreads.  Expect to pay in the region of £50 to £80 for the pleasure per person, but you'll be in for a treat if you go with one of our recommendations. Remember, many of the teas have set times for seatings, so booking in advance is always a good idea. RECOMMENDED: The best hotels in London. Leonie Cooper is Time Out London’s Food and Drink Editor and knows her stuff when it comes to tiny little cucumber sandwiches and drinking Champagne at 3pm. For more about how we curate, see our editorial guidelines. The hottest new openings, the tastiest tips, the spiciest reviews: we’re serving it all on our London restaurants WhatsApp channel. Follow us now.

Last year we bid farewell to Succession, Barry and Top Boy, fell hard for Beef, Colin From Accounts and Blue Lights. The next 12 months should help us move on – the potential impact of 2023’s writers’ strike notwithstanding – as early hits like World War II epic Masters of the Air and Mr and Mrs Smith, Prime Video’s intoxicating mix of witty marital drama and zippy espionage caper, are already proving. Ahead is a hotly-anticipated new run of Squid Game on Netflix, a third season of Industry, a sci-fi prequel in Dune: Prophecy, Colin Farrell in DC spinoff Penguin, and The Franchise, the latest from telly genius Armando Iannucci – among many other potentially binge-worthy offerings. But there’s only so many hours in the day and you can’t spend all of them on the sofa. Here’s our guide to the shows most worthy of your time.RECOMMENDED: 🔥 The best TV and streaming shows of 2023🎥 The best movies of 2024 (so far)📺 The 100 greatest ever TV shows you need to binge

Oh yes it is: London panto season returns for 2024, with familiar faces, familiar stories, and yet somehow holding on to a constant sense of anarchic family fun. For many Londoners, Christmas is the only time of year they'll visit a theatre; for others it’s an opportunity to see their favourite stage performers let their hair down; for everyone it’s a seasonal joy and a quintessential quirky experience. They’re joyful Christmas shows in London, especially if you're looking for a show to take the kids to. From the megascale London Palladium show with its filthy figurehead Julian Clary, to Clive Rowe’s brilliant panto purism at the Hackney Empire, London is a city that takes pantomime seriously. Even if the idea of seasonal frivolity fills you with dread, there’s a panto out there for you. RECOMMENDED: The best London theatre shows to see in 2024 and 2025. The best Christmas theatre shows in London.

With the nation’s comics released from Edinbrugh London is full of laughs this September: you can check out this year’s Edinburgh comedy award winner (Amy Gledhill), last year’s (Ahir Shah) or just have a high old time at the blockbuster Greenwich Comedy Festival. The best comedy clubs in London. The best new theatre shows to book for in London.

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. From big ‘serious’ plays by legendary companies like Punchdrunk to deliciously frivolous dinner-theatre shows and plenty of points in between, the content and execution of each of these shows may very wildly – but each is guaranteed to let you step into a whole new world. The best new London theatre shows to book for right now.

This drama by US playwright Carey Crim boldly explores some very morally grey areas in its story about Tom (David Sturzaker), a well-liked high school English teacher who loses his job and goes to jail after he’s accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student.  Crim has written a more interesting play for ducking the issue of Tom’s ultimate guiltiness or innocence. He maintains he didn’t do it. He seems like a nice guy. His wife Leigh (Lisa Dwan) stands by him. But the stats are there: as Leigh’s increasingly estranged friend Jayne (Allyson Ava-Brown) says, barely any such accusations prove to be false, and it is rare a court actually sends a man down on such charges. It doesn’t look good.  But ‘23.5 Hours’ never aims for a definitive final revelation about whether Tom did it or not. Instead it’s about the terrible strain on the family – and specifically Dwan’s Leigh – of trying to soldier on once he’s released. Their happy old life that we briefly see in the opening scene is gone - Tom’s work options are reduced to almost nothing, their friends are suspicious, and even Leigh has her moments; as she puts it in a teary speech near the end, she is convinced of Tom’s innocence… 23-and-a-half hours a day. It’s such a shame that this fascinating story is told via the medium of bombastic soap opera dialogue: Crim’s lines are clunky and melodramatic, and the relative subtlety of the play as a whole stands in contrast to scenes that are noisy and full of confronta

Mike Leigh’s genius satire on ‘70s social climbing can feel like one of those plays where there’s not much you can do with it beyond faithfully channelling the iconic original production (which was famously televised in 1977).  But Nadia Fall’s final show as Theatre Royal Stratford East artistic director (she’s off to run the Young Vic) manages to find a couple of clever new angles on ‘Abigail’s Party’ while playing to its long established strengths. Most obviously, Tamzin Outhwaite is superb casting as Beverly, the nightmarish hostess of a suburban dinner party on the ‘London side of Essex’. Leigh famously devises his work with his original casts, and Alison Steadman’s original portrayal of Beverly is timeless. But her version and others I’ve seen since tend to portray Beverly as a creature of pure instinct, her grim hostess-with-the-mostess routine, acid putdowns of her husband Laurence (Kevin Bishop) and inappropriate flirting with her neighbour Tony (Omar Malik) feeling like something she couldn’t not do, and is on some level barely aware of (perhaps part of the reason the play’s detractors accuse it of punching down at the aspirational British working class). Outhwaite, on the other hand, is wickedly calculating, a middle aged mean girl who deftly manipulates her hapless guests as a means of making herself feel better about her rut of a life, in which a veneer of aspiration masks boredom and mundanity. She is just awful, but she is shrewd and calculating – in the most te

I am a sucker for a quixotic musical folly, and there are few musical theatre shows in London more quixotic or foolish than ‘Why Am I So Single?’, the second show from Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow, writers of sleeper megahit ‘Six’. It follows fictionalised versions of… Moss and Marlow: semi-grounded Nancy (Leesa Tully) and ludicrously OTT, indecisive-of-pronouns Oliver (Jo Foster). They’re BFFs, trying to write a musical together. Cheerily disregarding the fourth wall, they inform us that it’s a musical about themselves, except they’ve swapped everyone’s names for characters from ‘Oliver!’ – hence they have an agent named Fay Ginn and a sardonic bisexual pal called Art Fuldodger. Quite how autobiographically accurate any of this is it’s impossible to say, but it’s fairly apparent from the programme notes – heck, the programme photos – that it’s pretty close. In fact Nancy and Oliver’s attempts to pen a fresh hit are only a vague backdrop to ‘Why Am I So Single?’, which as the title suggests is heavily based on the duo pondering why they are in fact so single. It does not need two-and-a-half hours to answer this question, which is why ‘Why Am I So Single?’ comes across as an endearingly quirky but preposterously self-indulgent parade of set-piece musical numbers with about three minutes of actual story in between.  What is admirable in a slightly kamikaze way is the extent to which Moss and Marlow knowingly lean into the indulgence: the first half closes out to a ludicrous song c

What are the Science Museum’s Astronights? For whatever reason, the idea of sleeping over at a museum sounds absolutely amazing to the average child. To capitalise on that, the Science Museum’s Astronights is in a very literal sense a sleepover at the museum, synonymous with the Natural History Museum’s probably slightly better known Dinosnores. What happens on an Astronight? Aimed at children aged seven to 11, the nights take place once a month, typically on a Friday and are essentially divided into three bits. In the evening there’s a programme of activities between 7pm and 11pm, taking in a series of craft workshops, fun science lectures and other activities. The sleepover takes place between lights out at 11.30pm and lights on at (gulp) 6am. And the next morning there’s a light breakfast followed by access to two of the museum’s most popular attractions, the IMAX and the Wonderlab. How much do Astronights cost? Tickets are relatively pricey at £75, given that normally the museum is free admission, though another way of looking at it is that it’s pretty storming value for a night’s B&B in Kensington plus a host of additional activities. You can pay £100 for a slightly comfier VIP option, and as a bonus the 2024 nights are being sponsored by Tempur, who are providing a free pillow to each camper. Are they any good? There is zero getting away from the fact that sleeping on a museum floor is deeply, deeply uncomfortable - you’re provided with a thin sleeping mat, and it’s BYO

Writer and performer Selina Thompson’s breakthrough came with her solo show ‘Salt.’, a brilliant and uncomfortable piece of autobiographical docu theatre about the white gaze and her arduous experience sailing the route of the old Transatlantic slave triangle. Deeply personal, it clearly took its toll on Thompson as she ceded the spotlight for its final tour, with an actor performing in her place. ‘Twine’ is not technically the follow up to ‘Salt.’, but I believe it is the first thing Thompson has done since then to play in a theatre, with projects in between including various community works and a Missy Elliot-themed schools show. Like ‘Salt.’, ‘Twine’ feels personal. Unlike the agonisingly direct ‘Salt.’, ‘Twine’ is drenched in distancing mechanisms. Thompson does not herself appear, although she is implicitly there as a presence. Performers Muki Zubis, Nandi Bhebe and Angelina Chudhi are constantly referring to an unseen writer called Sycamore, who has split into three as a result of her soul-searching over her adoption: she had divided into them, three aspects of herself called Bark, Seed and Sapling. It is a story about adoption, and how Sycamore’s three selves gradually get to grip with the facts of her early childhood, when she was taken in and raised by a new family following the death of one of her siblings. As well as the text, Thompson’s other big contribution is programme notes that make it clear that she is a child of adoption, but also stressing the show isn’t s

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

A man so virtuosically witty he has an adjective named after him, the opening scene of Tom Stoppard’s ‘The Real Thing’ is Stoppardian to the point of parody. We meet a waspishly witty husband - Oliver Johnstone‘s Max - who barrages his wife Charlotte (Susan Wokoma) with inane but aggressive queries about her recent work tip abroad before casually revealing that he found her passport and she couldn’t have been in Switzerland – she has clearly been having an affair. To more earthbound writers that might be the set up for the play proper, but inevitably Stoppard is cleverer than that: the start of his 1982 comedy ‘The Real Thing’ is a feint, a scene from a play within the play by Henry (James McArdle), a Stoppard-proxy playwright who we meet fretting over his song selections for that weekend’s ‘Desert Island Discs’, on which he will be a guest. Wokoma’s Charlotte is in fact his actress wife; in the opening scene they’re having her co-star Max (Johnstone) and his wife Annie (Bel Powley) over for drinks and nibbles. Charlotte and Max are having an affair in the play; Henry and Annie are having an affair for real. It’s a dazzlingly arch exploration of performative identity: Charlotte plays the perfect hostess, though she’s deeply annoyed at Max and Annie coming around; Henry and Annie play distant strangers, although they’re hardly that; and Henry is engaged in the fabrication of his own personality for ‘Desert Island Discs’ – he’s workshopping a list of classical pieces to present

This review is from 2023. ‘1984’ returns to Shoreditch Town Hall in 2024 in redirected form, by Jack Reardon. Choosing the right location is half the struggle for an immersive theatre show. And the stunning art deco Hackney Town Hall is a magnificent and period-appropriate backdrop to Adam Taub’s adaptation of Orwell’s immortal totalitarian satire ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. Unfortunately, the other half of the battle is still making a great play, and here’s where Jem Wall and Richard Hahlo’s production falls down. It begins with us taking an ‘entrance exam’ for the Ministry of Truth, which takes up 20 minutes or so before Jude Akuwudike‘s O’Brien shows us surveillance footage of Declan Rodgers’s Winston and Kit Reeves’s Julia having an illicit affair – in defiance of the aggressively asexual society of this Britain, now part of a totalitarian superstate named Oceania. Seeing the events of the novel from the state perspective is an interesting idea, but we’re never meaningfully indoctrinated into the ways of Big Brother and The Party. Really we’re just watching a version of the novel edited down to three short scenes, with a little bit of immersive gimmickry thrown in. It’s far too short to convey the novel’s power, and as much as anything, the fact we immediately know The Party is onto Winston and Julia robs it of dramatic tension.  The actors are solid, and Akuwudike does a heroic job as O’Brien, both fulfilling his role in the book and handling the lion’s share of the audience

This singular full length Royal Court debut from playwright Tife Kusoro is set in a gloomy patch of inner city London that is topped by a pair of pristine white trainers, which have apparently hung high on a telephone wire for 20 years. For local school kids Khaleem (Ebenezer Gyau), Joy (Kadiesha Belgrave) and Kai (Selorm Adonu) they are a source of dread: apparently they belonged to a teen wrongfully killed by police who has returned as an entity named Baitface the Gullyman, who will inflict catastrophic bad luck on any boy who walks under the shoes with his face uncovered by a balaclava. And bad luck seems to be overtaking the trio of friends, as the police home in on them for a non-specified crime that took place on a night on which none of them can account for their whereabouts. What Monique Touko’s production has going for it in spades is atmosphere; what Kusoro’s text has is imagination. ‘G’ is suffused with a cold inner city dread, the inevitable low level paranoia of being a Black teen in London bleeding into something more supernaturally ominous. Exactly how real Baitface is remains ambiguous for much of the show, but he’s nonetheless manifested by white balaclava-wearing actor Dani Harris-Walters, who stalks the stage ominously, occasionally breakdancing like a dervish, at one point straight out stepping over to the seats and eyeballing an unfortunate audience member at close range. Exactly whether this is happening in our own reality or an alternate one that’s clos

Though child-friendly immersive theatre company Punchdrunk Enrichment shares a name with its more famous parent group, it’s fair to say that it has now comprehensively fled the nest. With Punchdrunk now based in a huge complex far away in Woolwich, Punchdrunk Enrichment’s new show ‘Enitan’s Game’ is the first to be presented from the junior company’s new space in Wembley Park, a stone’s throw away from the unlikely cultural conglomerate of Wembley Stadium, ‘Starlight Express’ and Bubble Planet. Co-created by Mia Jerome and Punchdrunk Enrichment founder Peter Higgin and directed by Omar F Okai, ‘Enitan’s Game’ sees the company move away from the tried-and-tested formula of its previous shows, which generally started off looking innocuous and then at some point inevitably wowing you with a fabulous immersive set. Here, the magical and the real remain subtly blended in Casey Jay Andews’s design, which sees us begin in a perfectly recreated junk shop, run by Julian Smith’s affable old Ged. He chats away to us as if we’re up to speed on the recent passing of his friend Cecil, a windrusher and grandfather to sensitive twentysomething Enitan (Rachael Oriowo). Long story short, he designed her a one-off, apparently magical board game that we join in a nostalgic game of; but as we proceed it soon becomes apparent that a second, unseen player is also joining. Aimed at six to 11 year olds, ‘Enitan’s Game’ is three things: a fun treasure hunt-slash-clue finding show; an exploration of co

Peanut butter and blueberries are, rather alarmingly, Bilal’s favourite sandwich filling. He thinks the two dramatically different textures help each other go down better. In other words, his lunch is an allegory for Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan’s bittersweet British Muslim romcom, in which the roughcut Brummie lad meets cute - or cute-ish - with Hafsah, a demure but steely lass from Bradford. The two second generation immigrants – his family is Pakistani, hers Afghan – are studying at the same university in London - her gender studies (studiously), him South Asian studies (haphazardly). But they both feel like outsiders. Slowly, a friendship develops. It threatens to be something more, yet also constantly threatens to fall apart, largely because of his volatile nature - an explosive sensitivity to Islamophobia, a stifling concern for his vulnerable mother. Manzoor-Khan’s play works because it both celebrates the romcom – to a large extent it is made of comfortingly familiar beats – and yet the fact it’s about two devout young Muslims intrinsically subverts the form. A pair of outsiders find each other in London and experience a bumpy journey towards acknowledging their feelings: so far, so conventional. But there’s  no snogging or touching or even flirting in the conventional sense, and when the prospect of being something more than friends finally comes up it’s a delicate negotiation as to what they’d do next: marriage is unquestionably the only way forward for them as a couple,

Originally announced for the Globe’s canned 2020 summer season, this production of ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ has been a long time coming. And not just because its original incarnation got scuppered by Covid.  While deaf performers are beginning to make their mark in Shakespeare productions – generally in supporting roles – the Globe’s take on ‘Antony & Cleopatra’ is a landmark for a major theatre because it’s a full on bilingual English/BSL production, built around a lead performance from deaf performer Nadia Nadarajah as Egyptian queen Cleopatra. It’s a spirited and breezy take on Shakespeare’s oft-dense tragedy that I’d say doesn’t quite work. Director Blanche McIntyre’s conceit vis a vis being bilingual is that the Romans speak English and the Egyptians BSL. Which makes a certain aesthetic sense: aside from the neatness of dividing the factions by language, the passionate, full-bodied nature of signing (or the signing done here) suits the sensual Egyptians better than the calculating Romans.  However, while there are some crossover scenes, the production’s switching between languages has a tendency to disorientingly change the energy of the show, and non-deaf audience members’ means of watching (given they’ll likely shift to watching the surtitles during these bits).  So you have  Antony, Caesar and Pompey getting pissed together in English and  and then Cleopatra passionately dominating her court in BSL. But I’m not sure what it really means other than a constant and odd ton

London has already had one Dolly Parton musical: penned by the country icon herself, ‘9 to 5’ was an adaptation of the classic ’80s film that played a stint in the West End pre-pandemic and was an enjoyable bit of wilfully campy fun. The downside, however, was that awesome as it was that Dolly had written a load of new songs expressly for it, there was a distinct death of her classic hits bar the immortal title song. And that is where new musical ‘Here You Come Again’ comes in. Penned by Emmy-winning US writer Bruce Vilanch, Broadway director Gabriel Barre, and its star Tricia Paoluccio, the plot concerns a Parton superfan who turns to an imagined version of her (Paoluccio) to get through tough times. But the basic point here is that it includes her hits: ‘Jolene’, ‘Islands in the Stream’, ‘I Will Always Love You’, ‘9 to 5’ (again) and more. The show – which originated at Leeds Playhouse – has been touring the UK since spring and will be traversing the country next year too, but for Christmas it’ll pitch up as the main festive event at Hammersmith’s iconic Riverside Studios. There haven’t been any formal reviews for the regional tour, but word of mouth suggests an enjoyable night out with a few proper deep cuts for the real Parton heads – and of course it’s camp as Christmas, so what could be more seasonally appropriate? ‘Here You Go Again’ is at Riverside Studios, Dec 10-Jan 18 2025.  The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2024 and 2025. Brie Larson will make her W

After the sleepy summer months, London theatre rouses itself for a traditionally busy September. From the Royal Court’s biggest show in years to an intriguing new musical by Elvis Costello at the Young Vic, it’s a dizzyingly eclectic month. Photo: Guy Sanders 1. Giant Does ‘Giant’ tell us anything about the new regime at the Royal Court or is it basically a Bridge Theatre show that needed a home while the Bridge was occupied with ‘Guys and Dolls’? Who knows, but it’s an incredibly enticing prospect: Nicholas Hytner makes his Court debut directing a mouthwatering cast headed by John Lithgow, Elliot Levey, Rachael Stirling and Romola Garai in write Mark Rosenblatt’s dark comedy exploring Roald Dahl’s antisemitism. Royal Court, Sep 20-Nov 16. Buy tickets here. Photo: National TheatreDavid Oyelowo 2. Coriolanus Shakespeare’s knotty tragedy about a gifted Roman general pushed over the edge by his contempt for the populous is a rare but welcome visitor to the London stage. Now it’s back in a big splashy production starring a jacked and stacked David Oyelowo in his first big theatre role in aeons, directed by Lyndsey Turner. National Theatre, Sep 11-Nov 9. Photo: Young Vic 3. A Face in the Crowd This intriguing new musical is a collaboration between New Wave legend Elvis Costello and acclaimed US playwright Sarah Ruhl. It’s an adaptation of the cult 1957 film of the same name, which follows a charismatic drifter who is turned into a star by an ambitious local news network, onl

Academy Award winner and the literal Captain Marvel Brie Larson will make her West End debut early next year in a brand new production of an Ancient Greek tragedy. ‘Elektra’ by Sophocles is set in the aftermath of the Trojan War and long story short Elektra’s dad Agamemnon sacrificed Elektra’s sister Iphigenia to the gods in order to facilitate said war, Iphigenia and Elektra’s mum Clytemnestra didn’t like that and had Agamemnon killed, and ‘Elektra’ (the play) sees our heroine plotting murderous revenge on her mum.  Got that? Great! Regardless, this is profoundly unlikely to be a trad production of the play: unusually for a UK premiere the creating team is pretty much all made up of leftfield US talent: the adaptation is by poet Anne Carson, direction comes from Daniel Fish (who did the honours for the brilliant recent revival of ‘Oklahoma!’) and it’ll be choreographed by the legendary Annie-B Parson. Of course, Larson is the big draw: despite a career inevitably now overshadowed by the three Marvel films she’s appeared in, it’s easy to forget what a versatile talent she is, with roots in indie cinema, dabblings in directing, producing and screenwriting, and of course a literal Oscar for her role in claustrophobic abduction drama ‘Room’. Says Larson: ‘I couldn’t be more excited to perform in this Greek drama, or in better company collaborating with Daniel Fish and Anne Carson. Storytelling has always been the way I organize life, feelings and experiences. I look forward to s

It’s time to give your fokin’ money all over again – the hit Live Aid musical ‘Just for One Day’ is transferring to the West End in 2025. Having gone down a storm at the venerable Old Vic theatre at the start of this year, ‘Just for One Day’ retells the story of the Band Aid single and Live Aid concerts by focussing on various people who were involved, from stage crew to audience members to – naturally – Bob Geldof. We meet him as a grumpy present day version, and also flashback to as grumpy ’80s version as we see his shocked reaction to the Ethiopian famine start an unstoppable pop cultural movement. The musical – which is directed by ‘& Juliet’ man Luke Sheppard – is a cunning dual pitch at an older audience nostalgic for the original music and concerts, and a younger audience that’s served by sexy modern reworkings of the many ’80s standards that make up its song list. Meanwhile, present day dialogue between Geldof and a cynical young woman named Jemma at least make reference to the various ways the initiative has been criticised in subsequent years. To be honest, it feels a bit needy of Gen-Z approval, but whatever the case it seems to have worked as it’s apparently the Old Vic’s fastest selling musical ever, and demand has been such that it’s now set to soar into the West End next year in time for the fortieth anniversary of the concerts – it’ll replace ‘Mrs Doubtfire’ at the Shaftesbury Theatre (coincidentally both shows were written by British humorist John O’Farrell).

‘Frozen’ closed last weekend, and now another one of London’s big musicals to open post-Covid has announced it’ll be leaving town – albeit not until next year. ‘Mrs Doubtfire’ is, of course, the stage adaptation of the classic ’90s Robin Williams film about a divorced dad who poses as his own children’s nanny in order to spend more time with them. Despite having a rough time of it on Broadway – largely due to Covid – reviews were warmer over here (including four stars from Time Out!). It’s had a ‘good innings’ as they say: having opened in May last year, it’ll leave London in an orderly fashion, winding up its run in April next year. If that wasn’t clear, then Doubtfire herself – that’s Gabriel Vick, who will have been lead for the entire run – has recorded a special video message. What next for the Shaftesbury Theatre? The fact the show is running for over six more months suggests a deal has been inked to have something else move in next May – we’ll have more as it develops. For now, though, you have plenty of time to see ‘Mrs Doubtfire’, but the clock is ticking. ‘Mrs Doubtfire’ is at the Shaftesbury Theatre until April 26 2025. Buy tickets here. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2024 and 2025. Plus: the massive new Sadler’s Wells East dance theatre is finally opening. Get the latest and greatest from the Big Smoke – from news and reviews to events and trends. Just follow our Time Out London WhatsApp channel. Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time

Islington’s hallowed Sadler’s Wells remains London’s only dedicated major dance theatre, and that will go double from next February when its 550-seat sister venue Sadler’s Wells East opens in Stratford, Well over a decade after it was first mooted, Sadler’s Wells East is definitely, definitely happening, with the first 21 show announced for the venue. You’ll be able to book shows from September 25.  The theatre will open in early February next year with ‘Our Mighty Groove’ (Feb 6-9) by choreographer Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu, which will see young dancers from east London take part in a club-influenced opening blowout. The following few months will be gloriously eclectic and constantly busy, bringing together more community based work and London choreographers, major UK talent – including an early visit from Carlos Acosta’s Birmingham Royal Ballet (May 9 and 10) – and serious heavyweight artists from abroad: Mette Ingvartsen’s ‘Skatepark’ (Apr 10-12), a pounding mix of skateboarding and dance, looks particularly fun. It’s a boon to dance lovers but also to London: considering the number of major theatres we have, modern dance struggles to get much of a foothold in this city beyond Sadler’s, with the big ballet companies by far the most visible aspect of the genre. A whole second Sadler’s is, frankly, pretty wonderful: it’s a little smaller than the original, but it more or less doubles the amount of interesting contemporary dance work hosted in our city. It’s also a boost to the bu

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

Thirty years ago, ‘Clueless’ was the future. A dazzlingly witty transposition of Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ to a Southern California high school, it starred Alicia Silverstone as Cher, a rich, ditzy student who orchestrates romances between her teachers, gives the new kid a makeover, and generally goes everything but interrogate her own life. The fact that it was essentially a cult hit and that Silverstone never became a global superstar always seemed like a shame, and to some extent the cattier ‘Mean Girls’ probably ended up taking its place in the high school movie pantheon. But the years have done little to dull the charms of ‘Clueless’ – if you know, you very much know. Now it’s set to get a new lease of life in musical form, as the film’s original writer Amy Heckerling – also known for ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ and the ‘Look Who’s Talking’ films – adapts it for the stage, with songs by Radio 2-friendly ’00s songwriter KT Tunstall and direction from Rachel Kavanaugh, whose recent credits include ‘The Great British Bake Off Musical’ and the West End revival of ‘Half a Sixpence’. Questions to be answered include who will play the crucial role of Cher, and also is it still going to be set in the ’90s, but any opportunity to revisit Beverly Hills High is a welcome one. ‘Clueless, The Musical’ is booking at Trafalgar Theatre from Feb 15-Jun 14 2025’. Buy tickets here. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2024 and 2025. Plus: a host of new celebrity names have been a

Nassim Soleimanpour’s ‘White Rabbit, Red Rabbit’ is a cult theatre show par excellence, which started life at the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe, where a different performer each show would – with no preparation at all – read the play’s script and follow its stage directions, having never seen it before. While the idea is to not overly divulge the contents, the work is a playful and chilling work that took the form it did because the reader was intended to be a proxy for Iranian playwright Soleimanpour, who was unable to leave his home country at the time because he’d refused to do national service (he has subsequently left although that doesn’t take anything away from the show). Back then, the performers were basically random theatre people: I first heard about it because I bumped into my not-at-all famous friend Debbie on the street in Edinburgh and she said I should come down and watch her do the show. But as its reputation has increased, so bigger names have been attracted and long story short, the show is about to have its biggest and starriest run ever with a five-week West End run in which a different celebrity will read at each performance. The production was announced last month, when big names included Michael Sheen, Daisy Edgar Jones and Richard Gadd. Good luck seeing them now, but great news: a new and apparently final extension has been announced, and with it a slew of big name readers including Harriet Walter, Paloma Faith, Sheila Atim, Rory Kinnear and Denise Gough. Unl

Best known for his ’80s comedy ‘Lend Me a Tenor’ and his ’90s musical ‘Crazy for You’, the US playwright Ken Ludwig has clearly invested prudently over the years. Upon a recent visit to Stratford-upon-Avon he was told of the plight of the former home – to be fair, very former home – of Shakespeare’s daughter Susannah and her husband John Hall. Built in 1613, Hall’s Croft (as the home is know) is one of the last complete examples of Jacobean architecture in the country. But to paraphrase Susannah’s dad, time doth waste it, and the 411-year-old building is in a fairly bad way at the moment, with steel girders installed to support the roof now sinking into the ground and an extension added later in the seventeenth century now pulling away from the original house, meaning it’s literally pulling in two directions. However, as reported by the Guardian, when Ludwig was in town and told about this he didn’t hesitate to open his chequebook to the tune of a cool mil, the largest donation ever made to the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust in its 177-year history.  Lena Cowen Orlin, SBT’s vice-chair, said to the Guardian: ‘Hall’s Croft is a beautiful and atmospheric building that has been suffering from the need for serious intervention. Now we have the angel to make this possible … It’s a sleeping beauty of a building and Ken Ludwig is helping the trust bring it back to life as Shakespeare and his family knew it.’ Hall’s Croft has not been widely open to the public since the pandemic, whi

The last time I saw Morgan Lloyd and Kate Bond – creators and curators of the immersive phenomenon that is ‘You Me Bum Bum Train’ – it was to conduct an exclusive interview announcing the iconic show’s return after four long years. Unfortunately this was March 2020, and the ‘YMBBT’ comeback ended up being scuppered by the pandemic before it was even publicly announced. ‘It was heartbreaking and it was almost the end,’ recalls Lloyd over email, in another exclusive interview announcing the iconic show’s return after eight long years. In the end, it was not the end. And indeed while the scrapped 2020 version had been intended as a slightly different take on the show, this is old school, classic ‘Bum Bum Train’. ‘There were two main drivers for bringing the show back,’ says Lloyd. ‘One, a few pieces of creative thathave been haunting us. There was one idea that wouldn’t leave us alone (because it was special) and it felt like it was our responsibility to make it happen. And two, really valuing and mourning the loss of the unique community who come together to manifest the show.’ What is ‘You Me Bum Bum Train’? The basic idea is fairly easy to explain: it’s an immersive theatre show for one audience member at a time, and each of these so-called ‘passengers’ goes through a series of different rooms, each of which effectively casts them as the lead character of a different scenario. The nature of the scenarios is intended to be a closely guarded secret (the only publicity images ev

For 60 or so years the sinking of the RMS Titanic stood as a horrifying story of maritime disaster that also served as a cautionary parable of man’s hubris in believing it was possible to build a genuinely unsinkable passenger ship. Then, in 1997, the filmmaker James Cameron turned it into THE GREATEST LOVE STORY OF ALL TIME, in no small part helped by Celine Dion’s chart-devouring enormo smash ‘My Heart Will Go On’. Of course it remains a tragedy in which 1,500 people died, but it is a tragedy now forever associated with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet having it off in a steamy motorcar, plus Celine’s magnificent if somewhat thematically counterintuitive ballad of overcoming adversity.  A sad story, but now also a very camp one, which brings us on to ‘Titanique’. An off-Broadway hit that long sailed on to Broadway itself, the musical – by Tye Blue, Marla Mindelle and Constantine Rousouli – is a parody of ‘Titanic’ (the film) that retells the story from the crucial perspective of Celine Dion, who hijacks a museum tour about the sinking and claims to have herself survived the disaster and had firsthand knowledge of what really went down with Jack and Rose. The mix of earnest power ballads and cabaret-style parody has been a tremendous hit and now ‘Titanique’ is attempting its own Transatlantic crossing: it’ll be opening at the West End’s Criterion Theatre in December, with a press night after Christmas. Will London have New York’s appetite for this veritable giant iceberg o