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  1. The Hampstead Theatre auditorium
    Helen Maybanks | The Hampstead Theatre auditorium
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  2. Artistic director Ed Hall in the Hampstead Theatre auditorium
    Helen Maybanks | Artistic director Ed Hall in the Hampstead Theatre auditorium
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Hampstead Theatre

The modern off-West End theatre has a history of robust productions with wide-ranging appeal.
  • Theatre | Off-West End
  • Swiss Cottage
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Time Out says

Hampstead Theatre has reopened with a full season of plays, with social distancing remaining in place until 11th September

With its versatile main auditorium, the modern building of Hampstead Theatre is home to a host of meaty offerings since it was first founded in 1959, from new work by new playwrights and new work from old ones too. The likes of Debbie Tucker Green, Dennis Kelly and Mike Leigh have all had shows on in the early days of their careers, and the theatre has a history of its robust productions transferring to the West End.

The theatre downstairs is a platform for brand new work from very new writers and companies - that's not reviewed by critics - while the main house is a continued draw for respectable stars such as Roger Allam and Simon Russell Beale.

Grab a ticket for around £10 (concessions) to £35 for main house shows, while tickets in Hampstead's downstairs theatre are usually at the £12 mark. The bar area sells a good selection of hot meals and light bites, in a slightly cramped, but usually pretty buzzy atmosphere.

Details

Address
Hampstead Theatre
Eton Avenue
London
NW3 3EU
Transport:
Tube: Swiss Cottage
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What’s on

Bird Grove

Hampstead Theatre gets 2026 off to a promising looking start with its first main house show of the year. Bird Grove comes from the veteran playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell, his first in almost a decade. Set in 1841, it concerns a young woman named Mary Ann Evans – better known to future generations as the great novelist George Eliot. In Campbell’s play, a pre-Elioty Evans has come into conflict with her father Robert, who has moved her to the titular Bird Grove House in Coventry with the intention of marrying her off. But she chafes against this, aware already that to embrace social convention would be to deny her gifts. In her first major role since Andor made her a star, Elizabeth Dulau will play Mary, with Owen Teale as Thomas. Anna Ledwich directs. 
  • Drama

Copenhagen

One of the big British theatre hits of the ’90s – and probably the venerable British dramatic Michael Frayn’s most successful play – Copenhagan depicts a meeting in the afterlife between the Danish physicist Niels Bohr and his protégé, the German Werner Heisenberg. The subject matter is a real life, wildly speculated upon meeting the pair had in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen in 1941, where they discussed the ethics of making an atomic bomb. West Wing star Richard Schiff will play Bohr and Alex Kingston his wife Margrethe in Michael Longhurst’s first ever UK revival.
  • Drama

Kimberly Akimbo

A big coup for Hampstead Theatre here, as it bags the UK premiere of the wildly acclaimed US indie musical Kimberley Akimbo. Created by composer Jeanine Tesori and writer David Lindsay-Abaire, it’s an all-singing adaptation of Adams’s relatively obscure 2000 play of the same name, which follows the eponymous heroine, a 16-year-old girl afflicted by a rare/essentially magical disease that makes her age four times faster than usual. This means she has the appearance of an elderly woman while essentially being a teen. And apparently it’s wonderful! It bagged multiple wins at the 2023 Tony Awards – including the all important best new musical – and ran for a year-and-a-half on Broadway. Now it’s headed over here, albeit in a brand new production from Michael Longhurst, who did such a bang up job at the same address a few years back with Tesori’s Caroline, or Change.
  • Musicals
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