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.
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.
What is it? Bridgerton and Wicked hearthrob Jonathan Bailey stars as Shakespeare’s doomed, dithering monarch in the first show at the Bridge since it gave itself over to ‘Guys & Dolls’ for two years.
Where is it? Bridge Theatre.
Why go? Bailey is a fantastic actor, but director Nicholas Hytner is the real guarantee of quality – his Shakespeare productions never miss, including the brilliant immersive ones at the Bridge (whether ‘Richard’ is immersive is TBC).
What is it? MCU veterans Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell will share the stage nightly for the second half of Jamie Lloyd’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane season of Shakespeare, playing bickering lovers Benedick and Beatrice.
Where is it? Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
Why go? As ever with Lloyd, you come for the huge name celebrities, you stay for avant-garde razzle dazzle of his direction.
What is it? Clearly eager to make up for the years of his life he gave over to Succession, Brian Cox swifty follows up his 2024 starring role in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night with a reprisal and West End transfer for his 2023 turn in Oliver Cotton’s new play The Score. Set in 1747, it stars Cox as Johann Sebastian Bach, who has been lured to the Prussian court by the capricious Frederick II.
Where is it? Haymarket Theatre Royal.
Why go? Cox is the draw here – a heavyweight actor whose fame has found new heights thanks to a certain TV show.
What is it? It’s Chekhov’s wistful classic about a group of friends wilting in the provinces, but the bigger question is perhaps who is it? The great Cate Blanchett will star as vain actress Arkadina, in a production directed by German provocateur Thomas Ostermeier.
Where is it? Barbican Centre.
Why go? Obviously basking in the light of Blanchett’s presence is a big factor. But Ostermeier is a formiddable and bamboozling director, while the supporting cast – which includes Tom Burke, Emma Corrin and Tanya Reynolds – is to die for.
What is it? Surely the most successful British playwright of our time, James Graham scored a hit in his near hometown of Nottingham early in 2024 with ‘Punch’, a shocking true tale of violence and redemption that transfers to the Young Vic.
Where is it? Young Vic.
Why book? The sensational Nottingham reviews of course, but you’re probably interested in the story of how a promising young paramedic was killed by a single punch – and how his bereaved parents helped his attacker turn his life around.
What is it? A third chance to see the RSC’s blockbuster Studio Ghibli adaptation: after two sold out Barbican runs it settles in for a long anticipated West End stint.
Where is it? Gillian Lynne Theatre.
Why go? It’s a thrillingly maximalist transposition of the beloved film to the stage, but the biggest deal is of course the spectacular puppets, which the RSC has cannily continued to refuse to share any images of. Want to see the Catbus, or Totoro himself? You’ll have to go along and see them, then.
What is it? Still the brightest directorial talent of his generation, many of Robert Icke’s ‘adaptations’ are effectively new plays, but this drama about the fugitive Raol Moat’s murderous time on the run is his first ‘official’ play as writer.
Where is it? Royal Court Theatre.
Why go? Icke is both a brilliant writer and director and it’s hard to imagine he won’t come at this lurid tale in a manner that’s totally original and fascinating. Expect some decent name cast members as well.
What is it? The great Irish playwight Conor McPherson’s first new play in an age stars Chris O’Dowd (pictured) as a man returning to his family’s County Sligo home in the ’80s with a hidden agenda in mind.
Where it? Old Vic.
Why go? In large part because we’ve had not nearly enough McPherson of late – his Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country was 2017; his last play was The Night Alive in 2013. It’s impossible to know what to expect from him, but often humdrum premises are revealed to have much deeper, darker metaphysical underpinnings.
What is it? The big Broadway adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novella about the dark side of the American Dream transfers to the London Coliseum for a limited summer season.
Where is it? London Coliseum.
Why book? It’s very rare for a Broadway smash to cover over here so quickly and it’s only playing a limited summer season. By all accounts it’s a stunning spectacle, if not the most profound articulation of the book.
What is it? After debuting last year in New York, Stephen Sondheim’s final musical transfers to the National Theatre. It’s a darkly comic adaptation of two films by Luis Buñuel: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Exterminating Angel.
Where is it? National Theatre.
Why book? There’s no denying that part of the appeal is to be part of a little piece of history – the first UK audience to the last musical by Stephen Sondheim. But also it’s crucial to point out that he was the single greatest composer of musicals who has ever lived, and while he didn’t totally finish Here We Are to his liking, reviews from New York were warm.
What is it? Over 17 years on from his last UK stage outing Ewan McGregor returns to the West End in 2025, in Lila Raicek’s reworking of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder. Elizabeth Debicki and Kate Fleetwood are some heavyweight co-stars.
Where is it? Wyndham’s Theatre.
Why go? To see the Star Wars actor in the flesh, of course, but also because he was great in his two previous stage outing with My Master Builder director Michael Grandage (Guys & Dolls and Othello back in the ’00s) and because Ibsen’s visionary but surreal play feels ripe for a lucid modern makeover.
What is it? Big names Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman star as a pair of recovering alcoholics in the latest from caustic Northern Irish playwright David Ireland.
Where is it? @sohoplace.
Why go? Ireland is a writer on the up, with his short, wildly un-PC dark comedies finding increasingly large audiences. I’s always a pleasure to see Freeman. But there’s no denying that ther stager return of Lowden – flush from the success of Slow Horses – is the biggest draw in an enticing show.
What is it? Arthur Miller’s allegorical masterpiece about the Salem witch trials becomes the first revival by a playwright other than Shakespeare to be staged at the Globe’s open air theatre.
Where is it? Shakespeare’s Globe.
Why go? Miller’s momentous play never dims in power or relevance. But there’s something very special about the idea of the Globe’s iconic space now finding room for the classics, and the sprawling, Shakespearean epic – sent just a few decades after the Bard’s death – should be the perfect starting point.
What is it? Drew McOnie’s first season in charge of the Open Air Theatre gets off with a bang via the UK premiere for smash UK musical Shucked.
Where is it? Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
Why book? Because by all accounts Robert Horn, Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s multi Tony-nominated 2022 musical comedy is funny as hell. It concerns a comically isolated rural farming community which must send representatives to the big city after their corn crop starts to fail. US director Jack O’Brien will restage his smash show with a new, UK cast.
What is it? A transfer for last summer’s superb Open Air Theatre production of Bock & Stein’s classic play about life and change in the old shtetl.
Where is it? Barbican Centre.
Why go? It’s a wonderful production from Jordan Fein, with astonishing design from Tom Scutt, and a perfect balance between the musical’s jollier beginnings and much darker ending.
What is it? The hottest Broadway show of the last couple of years – and most Tony nominated play ever – David Adjmi’s Stereophonic is a fictionalised account of the making of Fleetwood Mac’s landmark Rumours album.
Where is it? Duke of York’s Theatre.
Why go? It’s got to be worth it for the hype alone, with several of the Broadway cast transferring along with the show. The reviews have been escstatic, praising the delicately worked account of a band at a creative peak but personal low trying to struggle through the recording process, with original songs provided by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler.
What is it? Fourteen years on from its original NT premiere, Alecky Blythe and Adam Cork’s verbatim musical about the Suffolk community haunted by the so-called Ipswich Strangler returns as part of its director Rufus Norris’s final season running the theatre.
Where is it? National Theatre.
Why go? London Road has to be seen – and heard – to be believed, as nothing even remotely like it has come along before or since. An ultimately deeply unsettling exploration of the nature of community via choral song, it’s beautiful and disturbing in equal measure, and almost certainly not what you are expecting.
What is it? Disney’s new stage musical, an adaptation of its Greek myth-themed 1997 film, with Luke Brady starring as the muscular demigod.
Where is it? Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
Why go? The original film is obscure-ish by Disney standards, but much loved by those who know. And while it might seem like a slightly random choice of adaptation, word from Germany – where this production debuted – is very good.
What it it? Twenty-five years on, the entire original team of cast and creatives of Sarah Kane’s final play 4.48 Psychosis reunite to restage one the mostly bleakly powerful plays in British theatre history.
Where is it? Royal Court Theatre.
Why go? The play is a strange and haunting masterpiece and there’s undeniably a bragging rights element to bagging tickets to a show where demand will vastly outstrip supply. But there is definitely the hope that hugely talented director James Macdonald will find some new magic here and perhaps banish the shadow of Kane’s suicide, which hung heavy over the original production.
What is it? Unstoppable hit machine Jamie Lloyd’s third London opening in six months will be a reprise for his superb 2019 revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita, whose grungy monochrome stylings prefigured his blockbuster 2023 revival of Webber’s Sunset Boulevard.
Where is it? London Palladium.
Why go? Co-written with Tim Rice, Evita was always Webber’s best musical, and Lloyd’s tough, witty take preserved its grit and romance while cutting out the twee stuff. There’s also a decent chance of some big name casting to be announced.
What is it? The last Lyttelton theatre show to be programmed by Rufus Norris prior to his departure looks like a good one: following the Jodie Comer-fuelled West End smash Prima Facie, writer Susie Miller and director Justin Martin join forces with another big star for follow-up Inter Alia.
Where is it? National Theatre.
Why go? Rosamund Pike has had an excellent few years on screen with the likes of Saltburn and The Wheel of Time. Now it’s long past time we get to see her on stage again: it will be thrill to see her make her National Theatre debut to star as Jessica Parks, a maverick high court judge who precariously balances her work and her home life.
What is it? This classic 1947 musical romance from My Fair Lady writers Lerner & Loewe hasn’t been staged in the UK in over three decades. Now Drew McOnie directs it as the centrepiece to his first season in charge of the OAT.
Where is it? Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
Why go? The songs are sumptuous – hopefully top Scots playwright Rona Munro’s dramatically rewritten book has taken the cringe out of this story of two American pals who get lost in Scotland and discover a magical vanishing village.
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