The best theatre shows in London for 2025 not to miss

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. 

How much is it? £29.50-£160. 

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. 

How much is it? £12-£58.

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.

How much is it? £13-£75.

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 adaptation of The Hunger Games is due in October, but last actual new straight up Conor McPherson 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. 

How much is it? £20-£225.

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. 

How much is it? £25-£110.

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, by all accounts Here We Are is pretty damn good. It certainly has a cast to die for, including Rory Kinnear, Jane Krakowski and Martha Plimpton. 

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. 

How much is it? £25-£167.50.

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. 

How much is it? £25-£95.

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. 

How much is it? £5-£80. 

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. 

How much is it? £15-£65.

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. 

How much is it? £25-£165.

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. 

How much is it? £25-£175.

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? It’s the return of the Nicholas Hytner’s sublime immersive 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, back six summers later with a new cast.

Where is it? Bridge Theatre.

How much is it? £19.50-£135.

Why book? The original production was simply a total joy – for those with ‘immersive’ tickets it was a big queer rave in the woods that you were invited to. There’s some fun textual innovation: Hytner has basically swapped the lines of fairy antagonists Oberon and Titania. But the main deal here are the good – nay, ecstatic – vibes.

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. 

How much is it? £20-£99.

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. 

How much is it? £29.50-£158.50.

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. 

How much is it? £15-£30. Sold out but all Monday tickets go on sale on the morning of performance.

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. And this time he’s cast a huge, huge star: Rachel Zegler will make her UK stage debut as Eva Perón.

Where is it? London Palladium. 

How much is it? £29-£175.

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. Also there’s the small matter of Zegler: one of the hottest stars on the planet, this should be an explosive UK stage debut. 

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. 

How much is it? £25-£100.

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. 

How much is it? £15-£75.

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. 

What is it? After a decadce of false starts, a stage adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s dystopian YA classic The Hunger Games is coming to London in October, opening at a brand new in-the-round theatre in Canary Wharf.

Where is it? Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre.

How much is it? £tbc – tickets on sale March 27.

Why book? We’re not going to lie: the odds are most audience members will be fans of the books. Unlike recent stage outings for Harry Potter, Stranger Things and the TBC Game of Thrones play, this isn’t a new story: it’s the first bool adapted for stage. But despair not, theatre nerds: it has a thrilling creative team led by top playwright Conor McPherson – you can probably expect a darker, grungier take than the films.