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This April is an enjoyably eclectic month on the London stage, with a bit of celebrity magic – Ewan MacGregor and Elizabeth Debicki in My Master Builder – a blockbuster musical – Broadway transfer The Great Gatsby – and some cool international work at the Barbican in the shape of a very unusual Hamlet and a prestige Irish Beckett production. But there’s one production that’s really piqued my curiosity, as the greatest director of his generation makes his debut as a playwright with a truly fascinating looking play…
The best new London theatre openings in April 2025
1. Manhunt
Part of the reason Robert Icke has established himself as the greatest British director of his generation is that on the quiet he’s a remarkable playwright, with his brilliant contemporary adaptations Oresteia, Oedipus and The Doctor et al all vastly different to the source material. He’s never really sought any credit for his writing. But in another coup for the David Byrne-era Royal Court, Icke makes his debut there as both director and – for the first time officially – playwright. Manhunt is a drama about Raoul Moat, the fugitive who precipitated a deadly and eccentric chase across the North East after he shot his ex fiance and her new partner with a shotgun in 2010. It’s a strange and queasy story and if Icke can pull a great original play out of it then GOAT-dem surely beckons.
Royal Court Theatre, until May 3. Buy tickets here.
2. The Brightening Air
Technically the biggest Conor McPherson news in 2025 is that his stage adaptation of The Hunger Games will be debuting at a bespoke theatre in Canada Water in the autumn. But for the real heads, this is more of a thrill: much as we all loved his Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country, it has been 13 years since the Irish master of the metaphysical had a new straight up play. The ’80s-set The Brightening Air stars Chris O’Dowd as a man returning home to County Sligo to pick up the pieces of a family dispute, though as ever with McPherson it’s impossible to know which way it’ll actually go – but the supernatural is often involved.
Old Vic, Apr 10-Jun 14. Buy tickets here.
3. Rhinoceros
You’d have to look back to a ’00s Royal Court production starring a youthful Benedict Cumberbatch for the last time Eugene Ionesco’s absurdist masterpiece about a French town inexplicably overrun by rhinos played in London. But this revival looks worth the wait, running at the peerless Almeida and directed by our own master of the twenty-first-century absurd Omar Elerian, who did great things with Ionesco’s The Chairs at the same theatre a couple of years back. Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù stars as unfortunate hero Berenger.
Almeida Theatre, until Apr 26.
4. My Master Builder
Ewan MacGregor was a semi-regular presence on the stage earlier in his career, notably teaming up with director Michael Grandage to star in Donmar Warehouse productions of Guys & Dolls and Othello in the immediate post-Star Wars era. Almost 20 years on he’s reunited with Grandage for an intriguing if perhaps slightly less surefire proposition. My Master Builder is young US playwright Lila Raicek’s post-#MeToo drama inspired by Ibsen’s classic The Master Builder. MacGregor will star as a successful American architect who is unexpectedly confronted by a former student, played by Elizabeth Debicki, with Kate Fleetwood as his wife.
Wyndham’s Theatre, Apr 17-Jul 12. Buy tickets here.
5. Tambo & Bones
What a joy it is to have this wild-ride racial satire from US playwright Dave Harris returning to our stage. Originally opening to little fanfare in the US, its 2023 UK premiere production helmed by Matthew Xia clearly worked a hell of a lot better. It is a joyously mad romp through history that sees the eponymous Tambo (a deep thinker fixated on the betterment of Black America) and Bones (an incorrigible hustler) journey through history, from the Antebellum South to the high hip-hop era, to a deadly future dominated by killer robots. It’s audacious and ridiculous, very very funny and very very rude.
Stratford East, Apr 29-May 10.
6. Hamlet
This really isn’t Hamlet as we know it: seen at the Edinburgh International Festival to great acclaim last year, the Peruvian production by Teatro La Plaza is performed by actors with Down syndrome, who perform a version of the text that includes personal reflection on how it relates to their lives. It that sounds heavy – and long – then fear not. It is by literally all accounts a joyous affair that more riffs on Hamlet than is Hamlet. Not least in its running time, a svelte hour and 35 minutes.
Barbican Centre, Apr 24-27.
7. Dealer’s Choice
A prestige thirtieth anniversary revival for Patrick Marber’s classic debut play about an unbearably tense game of cards at an after-hours London restaurant. Directed by big name Matthew Dunster and starring Alfie Allen – brother to Dunster’s muse Lily – it’s virtually sold out already, though the intense interest suggests a transfer may not to be too far away.
Donmar Warehouse, Apr 8-Jun 7.
8. Ghosts
Playwright Gary Owen and director Rachel O’Riordan have brought us some truly splendid classical tragedy updates in the form of Iphigenia in Splott and Romeo and Julie, both of which relocated the action to contemporary Wales. Now they’re doing the honours for Ibsen’s Ghosts, albeit they’ve not found a cute new name for it this time. In its day one of the most scandalous plays ever written, Owen’s rewrite will star Victoria Smurfit (Rivals) and Callum Scott Howells (It’s a Sin) as Helena and Oz, mother and son bound by a terrible secret about her late husband.
Lyric Hammersmith, Apr 10-May 10. Buy tickets here.
9. The Great Gatsby
This lavish musical version of F Scott Fitzgerald’s immortal novella has made a remarkably quick journey from Broadway to the West End – perhaps simply because the opportunity of bagging this year’s limited slot at the huge London Coliseum came up, or possibly because the producers wanted to get it out the tracks first to head off Florence Welch’s rival musical version of the same story. US review suggests it’s pretty rather than deep, but sometimes that’s what you’re after from a musical anyway.
London Coliseum, Apr 11- Sep 7. Buy tickets here.
10. Krapp’s Last Tape
In an odd coincidence, this production of Samuel Beckett”s visionary drama of old age has its brief run at the Barbican at exactly the same time as Gary Oldman returns to the stage in a much higher profile production in York. Still, London is hardly getting sloppy seconds, as former Royal Court boss Vicky Featherstone is reunited with the great Irish actor Stephen Rea for a production that scored great reviews in Ireland and Australia last year.
Barbican Centre, Apr 30-May 3.
The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2025.
The Royal Court has just announced its May to December programming.