Andrzej Lukowski

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.

Hello parents and guardians! I’m Time Out’s theatre editor and more relevantly, I'm in charge of our kids coverage. As a parent of two childen myself I can confirm that London is an amazing city raise kids in if your priority is ‘keeping them occupied’. Yes, you have to put a bit of commuter time in to take advantage of it all, but there’s a virtually endless stream of stuff for children to do, from playgrounds and parks to incredible children’s theatres, free museums to slightly more expensive zoos and aquariums, and all sorts of stuff inbetween. This is a sort of checklist of what we think the 50 best things to do in the city with kids are. Some of it is incredibly obvious: you’re probably aware that London has a Natural History Museum. But it’s worth stressing is a really, really great Natural History Museum, and whether you’re just visiting or have lived here all your life, a visit is a terrific day out. Alongside that, we’ve got 49 other ideas for things to do with childen in London – the focus is inevitably on younger children of nursery and primary school age, but we aim to cater for all here, from tots to teens. That’s all ages, all budgets and all times of the year – as well as adding new London attractions as they open or return, this list will be switched around seasonally: ice rinks, grottos and pantiomimes are great to take your children to in winter, less so in summer. Of course, there are more than 50 things for children to in London, and we’ve got plenty of ot

There are over a hundred theatres of all shapes and sizes throughout London, from tiny fringe venues above pubs to iconic internationally famous institutions like the National Theatre. And at the heart of it is the West End, aka Theatreland. What is a West End theatre? Unlike Broadway, where there are strict definitions based upon capacity, there is no hard and fast definition of a West End theatre. However, West End theatres are all commercial theatres – that is to say, they receive no government funding – and on the whole they are receiving houses, that is to say they don’t have in house artistic teams creating the work that they show (although often theatre owners like Andrew Lloyd Webber or Nica Burns may commission or even create the work). They are mostly based in the West End of London, although it’s not a hard and fast rule, with two major ‘West End’ theatres at Victoria. Most West End theatres are Victorian or Edwardian, although Theatre Royal Drury Land and Theatre Royal Haymarket have roots a couple of centuries before that, while @sohoplace is the newest (it opened in 2022). Capacity is similarly all over the shop: the 2,359-set London Coliseum is the biggest; the smallest is generally held to be the 350-set Arts Theatre. Many mid-size theatres like the Harold Pinter, Duke of York’s or Wyndham’s are greatly in demand for drama and serve as home to several different productions every year. Others, like the Lyceum or His Majesty’s have played host to a single musica

February half-term is here again – oh joy. Usually the coldest and wettest of school holidays, it’s not that promising on paper, but London always rises to the challenge magnificently – of all the half-terms, this is the one that boasts the large number of things for kids to do indoors, with the mighty Imagine Festival at the Southbank Centre probably the biggest annual event in the London kids’ calendar, and plenty more on besides, from a Robot Zoo at the Horniman to the new Ancient Egypt exhibition at the Young V&A. 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. And remember: this is London, and there’s always loads of things for youngsters to do, from enjoying the city’s many child-friendly museums and galleries that really come into their own when school is out, to taking in one of the many, many children’s theatres that our glorious city and its surrounds have to offer. When is February half-term this year?  This year, London’s February half-term officially falls between Monday February 17 and Friday February 21 (ie they will continuously be off Saturday February 15 to Sunday February 23).  Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this February half-term. 

The only half term where you can reasonably expect nice weather, May half-term is a sort of last minute practice session before the beast that is the six-week school summer holidays. The (hopeful) nice weather is a big deal:  ‘go to the park’ or ‘day-trip to the seaside’ are viable options now when they most certainly aren’t in mid-February or late October. However, there are still many, many fun things to indoors in London itself for kids of all ages. My name is Andrzej and I’m Time Out’s lead kids’ writer, and here’s my pick of the best things to do this May half-term. As ever, the idea with this list is to highlight the best new, returning or last chance to see shows; London also has plenty of evergreen fun for children of all ages, quite a lot of which you can find in out list of the 50 best things to do with kids in London. When is May half-term this year?  This year, London’s May half-term officially falls between Monday May 26 and Friday May 30 (ie children will be off continuously between Saturday May 24 and Sunday June 1). Monday May 26 is a bank holiday. Here’s our roundup of all the best things to do with your children this May 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 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. Please note that the prices quoted are the ‘official’ prices when the shows go on sale – with West End shows in particular it can unfortunately be the case that if they sell well, expensive dynamic prices can be triggered. 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.

Paris: the food, the fashion, the fromage, the fantasy. No matter how many times we visit the French capital, its charms never ever grow old. And we’re not alone in thinking that. Paris is a major tourist destination that attracts thousands upon thousands of enthusiastic travellers with heads filled with images of Breton jumpers, tiny dogs, and decadent pastries - the kind you can dip in your hot chocolate. But how do you enjoy this gorgeous city without just succumbing to the age-old clichés (as much as we do love all of them)? We’ve compiled a list of the 51 best attractions in Paris, from the big-name ‘must-see’ paris attractions to something a little bit more bespoke and treasured locally. So whether you’re looking for lesser-known museums, late-night live music, or the best places for shopping, we’ve got plenty of ideas - and they’re all as tasty as a Ladurée macaron. Time Out tip: If you want avoid taxing, RATP App and Citymapper will be essential for getting around Paris like a local.  RECOMMENDED: 🇫🇷See our full guide to the best things to do in Paris🥖Check out the best food tours in Paris📍Here's where to head for the best tours in Paris🛏 Stay in the best airbnbs in Paris🚍The best Paris bus tours This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, click here.

There’s a lot of talk about the state of London nightlife right now. Naysayers lament the fact that venues are closing at an alarming rate, blame Gen Zs for not going out and claim that it’s impossible to get a drink in central after 1am (it’s really not). With all that negativity and uncertainty, it’s tempting to just stick to what you know – or worse, stay in – rather than get out there and experience what this vast city has to offer after dark.  There are new nights popping up all the time. Heart of Soul, Jungyals and Gays, Club Stamina and Joyride are all relatively new (and totally brilliant) additions to London’s club scene. There’s also the nights that have remained classics for good reason – Rowans, the Palm Tree fridays, K-Hole – as well as more wholesome late-evening activities like life drawing, spoken word nights and supper clubs.  There’s nights out for everyone in this city. Nights for foodies, film buffs, audiophiles. Nights for marathon ravers, old-school movers and for when you need a proper good singalong. Even nights out for when you just want a nice sit down.  We curated this list by asking Time Out staff members for their favourite nights out in the city – and trust us, we know our stuff. Our list features nights in central London, east London, west London, north London and in south London. They all take place frequently, or semi-frequently, throughout the year and each offers something unique. So what are you waiting for? Start planning your next night o

Thanks to some frankly pretty wacky decisions made at the Council of Nicea in the year 325AD, the Easter weekend famously jumps around crazily from year to year, making the Easter holiday undoubedly the most erratic of all school breaks. For 2025, the school Easter hols stretch from Saturday April 5 to Monday April 21, with that Monday of course Easter Monday – Easter being so late this year that the holidays end with it. That’s a lot of child entertaining to do, but with the weather hopefully staying nice and spring now fully sprung, it’s a great opportunity to go out and have fun with the family and take advantage of the most fun family activities available this April.  Stuck for ideas on how to fill all this free time? That’s where we come in. Below is a list of ideas for things you can get up to in London with the kids this Easter holidays.  RECOMMENDED: Crack open our full guide to the Easter weekend.  

There’s perhaps nothing more magical than seeing a play or musical in the open air, and London is absolutely the city for it. In defiance of the weather gods, our outdoor theatre season now stretches from March to late October: we’re are just that tough. Or at least, optimistic about the weather. Substantially it revolves around a few key theatres, notably Shakespeare’s Globe – open March to October and generally boasting a cheeky outdoor Christmas production – and the delightful Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, which is open late spring to the end of summer. The former specialises in Shakespeare plays, while the latter has a musical theatre focus. But there’s plenty of other stuff, especially as the summer reaches its height, from the ambitious street theatre of the Greenwich and Docklands International Festival to the musical theatre blowout of West End Live. Not sure what you'll need for an open-air theatre trip? Then don’t miss our guide to practical open-air theatre info.  If you’re interested in taking in some outdoor cinema this summer, head to our dedicated page.

To say that William Shakespeare bestrides our culture like a colossus is to chronically undersell him. Over 400 years since his death, the Stratford-born playwright is virtually uncontested as the greatest writer of English who has ever lived. Even if you’re not a fan of sixteenth century blank verse – and if not, why not? – his influence over our culture goes far beyond that of any other writer. He invented words, phrases, plots, characters, stories that are still vividly alive today; his history plays utterly shaped our understanding of our own past as a nation. And unsurpisingly he is inescapable in London. The iconic Elizabethan recreation Shakespeare’s Globe theatre is his temple, with a year-round programme that’s about three-quarters his works. Although based in Stratford-upon-Avon, the Royal Shakespeare Company regularly visit the capital, most frequently the Barbican Centre. And Shakespeare plays can be found… almost anywhere else, from the National Theatre – where they invariably run in the huge Olivier venue – to tiny fringe productions and outdoor version that pop up everywhere come the warmer months.  This page is simple: we tell you what Shakespeare plays are on in town this month (the answer is pretty much always ‘at least one’). We we tell you which of his works you can see coming up in the future. No other playwright is staged nearly enough to get his own page. But for William Shakespeare, it’s essential.

London theatre has a reputation for being expensive. And there’s no getting away from the fact that it can be: in particular top West End prices have soared in recent years, with many popular shows having an upper price of over £200 or even £300 – as much as a music festival. However, the exorbitant top prices really aren’t the whole story. London theatre is vastly cheaper than America’s Broadway, and the cheapest tickets for any given show are almost always less than £30, and often less than £20. And there will always be inexpensive ways into a show, be it snagging a discounted online ticket or buying a bargain basement standing ticket. Want to go to the theatre in London but don’t think you can afford it? Here’s a hopefully exhaustive guide to why you’re wrong. I’m Andrzej Łukowski, Time Out’s theatre editor, and arguably I got this job purely to avoid having to pay for theatre tickets. But I’ve picked up a few tricks on the way that I’m delighted to share with you, gentle reader. Buy early A lot of West End naysayers act as if the top prices are the standard prices, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Every show has cheap seats, but they often sell out. Pay attention to what’s coming up and try to get in as early as possible. If there’s a long-running West End show you want to see, follow its socials so you when new blocks of tickets go on sale.  Online lotteries and rush tickets  Virtually every show will have cheap last-minute tickets available digitally. Broadl

Show writer Kate Trefry explains all you need to know about ‘The First Shadow’. ‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’ is a sprawling maximalist monolith, a gargantuan entertainment that goes beyond being a mere ‘play’. It’s too unwieldy and too indulgent to be a theatrical classic. But nonetheless, this prequel to the Netflix retro horror smash is the very antithesis of a cynical screen-to-stage adaptation.  As overwhelming in scale as as the show’s monstrous Mindflayer, it’s a seethingly ambitious three-hour extravaganza of groundbreaking special effects, gratuitous easter eggs and a wild, irreverent theatricality that feels totally in love with the source material while being appreciably distinct from it.  It’s clearly made by a fan, that being big-name director Stephen Daldry, who used his Netflix connections (he’s the man responsible for ‘The Crown’) to leverage an official collab with the Duffer Brothers, creators of the retro horror smash.  It starts as it means to go on, with pretty much the most technically audacious opening ten minutes of a show I’ve ever seen, as we watch a US naval vessel deploy an experimental cloaking device in 1943, to catastrophic effect. Yes, the sets wobble a bit, and yes, writer Kate Trefry’s dialogue is basically just some sailors bellowing cliches. But we’re talking about watching a giant vessel getting pulled into a horrifying parallel dimension on stage. It is awesome; and when it cut into a thunderous playback of Kyle Dixon and Michael St

Not even the world’s most slavish Ibsen junkie will ever be able to fully appreciate the impact Ghosts had upon its London debut in 1891. ‘A dirty act done publicly’ thundered an infamous Telegraph review, genuinely horrified by the Norwegian dramatist’s dabblings with STIs, incest, adultery, euthanasia and a lil’ bit of good old blasphemy. Still, even if your jaw no longer drops that it would ‘go there’, Ghosts has hardly lost its edge: STIs, incest, adultery, euthanasia and blasphemy haven’t become twee. And I’d say playwright Gary Owen has bitten off a bit more than he can chew in trying to aggressively modernise a play that is, at heart, extremely modern.  Following in the footsteps of his excellent Iphigenia in Splott and Romeo and Julie, Ghosts is his third radical update of a major classical tragedy in collaboration with Lyric Hammersmith boss Rachel O’Riordan (presumably nobody could think of a cute new name for this one). But although it’s a solid production with an excellent cast, it feels like Owen has ripped out some of its character in an effort to logically set it in the present.  Helena (Victoria Smurfit, fresh from her caged tiger turn in Rivals) is a widow who has used her late husband Captain Alving’s vast fortune to fund the creation of a children’s hospital on the unspecified English island the play is set on. But a series of dark truths about the deceased are set to come to light and shatter the measure of happiness Helen and her actor son Oz (Callum Scot

I choose to believe that the name of Mohamed-Zain Dada’s new drama about a speed awareness course in Birmingham is a nod to the seminal Keanu Reeves ‘90s thriller of the same name. Okay, it would have to be an ironic nod. But not as ironic as you might think. Speed starts off in wilfully mundane Britcom territory, but ends up somewhere rather more Reeves-friendly. Harleen, Samir and Faiza are a mismatched trio of British Asians who’ve each acquired nine points on their driving licences. This course is their last chance: get through it, and they have a reprieve. Don’t, and there’s no more driving for the foreseeable. Unfortunately they have to contend with Nikesh Patel’s stupendously annoying Abz, the course leader.  Like the ungodly offspring of Alan Partridge and Pauline from League of Gentlemen, Abz spouts patronising cliches and wields his leverage over the group like a cudgel: if they don’t go along with his course they can kiss driving bye bye. Nonetheless, he seems to genuinely want to help them better themselves. But what’s with his bizarre, therapy-like techniques? Why does he keep running off to answer his phone? And it is weird that everyone here is Asian? No spoilers, but despite the fact we never leave Tomás Palmer’s magnificently mundane hotel function room set (complete with a real fish tank), Dada takes us on quite a journey over 80 minutes.  At first the playwright simply has fun with the characters and the set up. Patel’s uptight Abz is a lot of fun of course

This review is from 2013. Brace yourself for a shock: ‘South Park’ creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Broadway-munching musical is not particularly shocking. Sure, there are ‘fucks’ and ‘cunts’ and gags about baby rape – but most of it is deployed ironically; beneath it all, this is a big-hearted affair that pays note-perfect homage to the sounds and spirit of Broadway’s golden age. The strapping young Latter Day Saints missionaries in ‘The Book of Mormon’ are as cartoonish as any ‘South Park’ character, with the endearing alpha-male woodenness of the ‘Team America’ puppets. In other words, they are loveable, well-intentioned idiots, traversing the globe like groups of pious meerkats, convinced they can convert the heathen through sheer politeness. And if they have doubts, then as Stephen Ashfield’s scene-stealingly repressed Elder McKinley declares in glorious faux-Gershwin number ‘Turn it Off’, ‘Don’t feel those feelings – hold them in instead!’ His advice is ignored by the show’s heroes, narcissistic, highly-strung Elder Price (Gavin Creel) and dumpy, lying Elder Cunningham (Jared Gertner). The pair are sent to Uganda in an effort to convert a village to Mormonism, a religion that essentially tells the penniless villagers how great distant America is. The locals are not keen: Price cracks and unwisely clashes with a crazed local warlord; Cunningham makes up his own version of Mormonism which involves fucking frogs to cure oneself of Aids. ‘The Book of Mormon’ is, above

Great news for all young Egyptologists: there’s a wonderfully educational temporary exhibition currently running in London devoted to all things Ancient Egypt, that offers genuine insight into this most iconic of cultures via its informative displays and genuine awe via the copious numbers of thousands of years old artefacts on display. But enough about the Young V&A’s excellent Making Egypt exhibition. I’m here to talk about Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition, a globe-trotting VR-enhanced attraction nominally devoted to the eponymous boy king of the eighteenth dynasty. How to put this? I’m not sure you’re likely to learn a lot, and there is something slightly dispiriting about the early sections, which are basically a standard museum-style experience except all the objects on display are gaudy replicas. I never really felt like I found out that much about Tutankhamun or the culture he came from at all, though the exhibition is better on Howard Carter, the eccentric British archaeologist who located the tomb in 1922.  However, after a couple of rooms, it gives up pretending to be a straight-up exhibition. In rapid succession we’re hit by a balls trippy 30-minute immersive film vaguely themed around Egyptian myths of creation and death; an even weirder VR film in which we’re cast as Tutankhamun himself, newly woken up in the afterlife; a ‘holographic’ film about mummification; and a more immersive second VR in which we can potter around the big man’s tomb. It kept my kids

In a way, the whole point of the world’s most successful video game is drudgery: Minecraft casts you as a self-employed resource gatherer who lives off the land and must harvest wood, soil, coal etc. in order to create a shack in which to hide from the various monsters that come out at night. Setting up shop in a, uh, corner of new Surrey Quays venue Corner Corner, this officially licensed immersive attraction is only 45 minutes long, but that’s a whole two-and-a-quarter days of Minecraft time. And if my children are anything to go by, then the globally touring show – London is its second stop after, inexplicably, Fort Worth in Texas – successfully whips its audience into an ecstatic frenzy of resource-gathering that might become diluted if they were given too much longer to realise they had basically been put to work down t’ pit. Although Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue opened in London the same day as A Minecraft Movie, the two actually have no direct connection beyond both being adaptations officially licensed by game creator Mojang Studios (it’s produced by a company called Experience Mod in collaboration with Mojang). Upon entry, each of us is issued a little McGuffin called the Orb of Interaction (being Minecraft, the orb is of course a cube). By tapping or gesturing at the various projected environments in the attraction’s sundry rooms we can interact with them via the Orb to harvest the resources required to complete our mini quest, which is to save a group of h

This review is from 2024. What a long, strange trip it’s been. Indie-folk musician Anaïs Mitchell’s musical retelling of the Orpheus story began life in the mid-’00s as a lo-fi song cycle, which she gigged around New England before scraping the money together to record it as a critically acclaimed 2010 concept album that featured the likes of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and Ani DiFranco on guest vocals as the various mythological heroes and villains. Going through the next 14 years blow-by-blow would be time-consuming, but in short thanks to what I can only describe as THEATRE MAGIC, Hadestown is now a full-blown musical directed by the visionary Rachel Chavkin, its success as a show vastly outstripping that of the record. It played the National Theatre in 2018, on its way to becoming the most unusual Broadway smash of the modern era. And it’s finally come back to us. Now in a normcore West End theatre, its otherness feels considerably more pronounced than it did at the NT. The howling voodoo brass that accompanies opener ‘Road to Hell’ is like nothing else in Theatreland. Mitchell”s original songs are still there but have mutated and outgrown the original folk palette thanks to the efforts of arrangers Michael Chorney and Todd Sickafoose. Rachel Hauck’s set – which barely changes – is a New Orleans-style saloon bar, with the cast all dressed like sexy Dustbowl pilgrims. It’s virtually sung through. It is essentially a staged concert, but it’s done with such pulsing musical inte

A discrete Notting Hill mainstay since it opened in 2012, The Shed is part of a mini empire of London eateries owned by the Gladwin brothers – a trio of siblings who own a farm and vineyard in Sussex and are determined to bring their rural values to the fancier bits of the capital.   That all sounds a bit like tweed and fox hunting are involved, but The Shed would actually be horizontal if it got any more relaxed. It’s a wilfully slightly shambolic, bric-a-brac stuffed building that is presumably so named because of its passing resemblance to a garden outbuilding. The staff do seem to have a loose uniform revolving around the wearing of braces, but service-wise they‘re mostly on ‘reassuringly affable’ vibes.  This is fare based around a few simple, clean flavours  The menu isn’t formally divided into starters, mains and the like, but rather an escalating series of sizes of dish that loosely correspond to the above. We started, or possibly amuse bouched, with some savoury pastries: a mushroom and marmite eclair was a bit full-on intense, but the Devon crab donut was sublime, an explosion of light, oceanic deliciousness, decent-sized but not stodgy.  Various farm-grown dishes were consumed: highlights included a vivid but pleasingly straightforward tasting heritage tomato and strawberry salad with both lovage and borage, and a coley crudo with dashi and watermelon radish, which delightfully contrasted light sheets of crunchy radish with fractionally chewier, notably more flavo

Interview: Robert Icke ‘if theatre isn’t astonishing, what’s the point?’ Robert Icke made his name directing boldly reimagined takes on some of the greatest plays ever written: Hamlet, Professor Bernhardi, The Oresteia and last year’s Oedipus (which cleared up during this year’s theatre award season). Despite the sense that he has genuinely added something to millennia old works, it’s still a big deal to make his debut as a ‘proper’ playwright. Even his most outrageous rewrites have had somebody else’s ideas at their core. Manhunt, his play about Raoul Moat, is all him. And to be clear – and I’m going to shock you here – it’s not as good as Hamlet. Nonetheless, after a tentative start where it looks like it’s going to serve as a sort of well-intended apologia for Moat, Manhunt really settles down into something compellingly weird. It’s an examination of toxic masculinity, yes, but in the same kind of way that Moby Dick is an examination of toxic masculinity. The early stages see Samuel Edward-Cook’s triple-jacked double-stacked Moat in the dock for a variety of changes. If you have any familiarity with his short, brutal, bitterly absurd rampage across the north east, you’ll get that this trial can’t possibly have happened – it’s a vague existential framing device designed to get Icke’s Moat to defend his actions almost from the off.  There is undeniably something gauche about his pleading about the state of his mental health and hard childhood. And there’s a level of intentio

Though you can buy all of Michael Bond’s books in the gift shop, let’s be clear here: the Paddington Bear Experience has very little to do with the first 50 or so years of the marmalade-loving ursine’s existence. Rather, the lavish new central London immersive experience makes no bones about fact it’s a live extension of the world of the two (soon to be three) StudioCanal movies. Theoretically I suppose that’s a shame. Debuting in print in 1958, Paddington has a rich history and London’s first proper attraction dedicated to him doesn’t explore it at all. But who are we kidding here? The Paul King films are modern masterpieces, and Paddington would be left as a beloved but past-his-prime nostalgia character if it weren’t for them. He’d have his little statue at the station. But nothing like this. You don’t absolutely need to have seen the films, but there are countless callbacks to them in this gentle adventure, which essentially an immersive theatre show. As we begin by waiting at a small recreation of Paddington Station to board our train to Windsor Gardens, we’re serenaded by a pre-recorded version of the band from the films playing ‘London is the Place for Me’; when we make it to Windsor Gardens for this year’s Marmalade Day Festival, designer Rebecca Brower has faithfully recreated the entire downstairs of the Brown’s boho Notting Hill pad. And then of course there’s Paddington himself - constantly teased as just out of full sight, his prerecorded voice would seem to be t

This review is from 2022. My Neighbour Totoro is now running at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in the West End with a mostly new cast. Studio Ghibli’s 1988 cartoon masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro is a stunningly beautiful, devastatingly charming film, in which not a huge amount happens per se.  It follows two young sisters who move to the countryside with their dad and basically get up to a lot of extremely normal things… while also fleetingly encountering a succession of astounding otherworldly creatures, most notably Totoro, a gigantic furry woodland spirit, and the Cat Bus, a cat that is also a bus (or a bus that is also a cat, whatever). Its most iconic scene involves young heroines Mei and Satsuki waiting at a bus stop, and Totoro shuffling up behind them, chuckling at their umbrella (a new concept to him) and then hopping on his unearthly public transport. So if you’re going to adapt it for the stage you’re going to have to absolutely nail the puppets you use to portray Totoro and co.  The RSC absolutely understood the brief here, although you’ll have to take my word for it, as for this first ever stage adaption – by Tom Morton-Smith, overseen by legendary Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi – the company hasn’t allowed a single publicity photo of a single puppet (bar some chickens) to be released.  Nonetheless, the puppets – designed by Basil Twist, assembled by Jim Henson's Creature Workshop – are fucking spectacular. They have to be fucking spectacular because that’s the offer o

In the unlikely event you were worried a leap to the stage for JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series would result in it becoming aggressively highbrow, self-consciously arty or grindingly bereft of magical high jinks, just chill the hell out, muggle.  ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ is an absolute hoot, a joyous, big-hearted, ludicrously incident-packed and magic-heavy romp that has to stand as one of the most unrelentingly entertaining things to hit the West End. Writer Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany and a world-class team have played a blinder; if the two-part, five-hour-plus show is clearly a bit on the long side, it’s forgivable. ‘The Cursed Child’ emphatically exists for fans of Harry Potter, and much of its power derives from the visceral, often highly emotional impact of feeling that you’re in the same room as Rowling’s iconic characters.  There’s also a sense that this story of wizards and witches is being treated with the respect its now substantially grown-up fanbase craves. No disrespect to D-Rad and chums, but the leads here are in a different acting league to their film counterparts’: Jamie Parker and Alex Price are superb as battered, damaged, middle-aged versions of old enemies Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Sam Clemmett and Anthony Boyle are a fine, puppyish, sympathetic engine to the play as their awkward sons Albus and Scorpius, trying to escape their parents’ shadows. It is a bit of a sausage (wand?) fest in terms of the lead parts, although in the most

Celebrity actors are famously reluctant to tour plays around the country: most of the time you’ll be lucky to get a cheeky week in Brighton ahead of a West End transfer. So immense credit then to nascent Brit superstar Jodie Comer, who scored a huge West End hit with Suzie Miller’s play Prima Facie in 2022 and repeated the feat in 2023 on Broadway. And she’ll be doing it again at the start of next year, as she dusts off the acclaimed monologue about a hotshot lawyer whose life is turned upside down after she is sexually assaulted.  The Justin Martin-directed play will tour the UK and Ireland for two-and-a-half months next year, starting with two dates in Richmond – its only London performances – and then playing a week each in Dublin, Edinburgh, Cardiff, York, Bath, Canterbury and Birmingham before wrapping up a year from now in Comer’s hometown of Liverpool The show was a virtual instant sellout on the West End and Broadway, and clearly it’s going to be a nightmare to get tickets to any given individual date when they go on sale Tuesday March 25. Nonetheless, thousands of people will see the run, and how cool Comer is doing this rather than another West End stint? The complete Prima Facie UK tour is  Jan 23-24 – Richmond Theatre, London Jan 27-31 – Gaiety Theatre, Dublin Feb 3-7 – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh Feb 10-14 – New Theatre, Cardiff Feb 17-21 – Grand Opera House, York Feb 24-28 – Theatre Royal, Bath Mar 3-7 – Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury Mar 10-14 – The Rep, Birm

Time Out’s theatre editor Andrzej Lukowski heads to his local multiplex to get to the bottom of the Minecraft Movie phenomenonAs I write this review of A Minecraft Movie, the discourse around Jared Hess’s big budget big-screen spin-off of the most successful video game in history has palpably shifted.  When the first trailer dropped in September, it became a virtual truism that this thing was going to be horrible: a folly, a flop, an abomination, with the main offender the retina-searingly weird way Hess had used CGI to make a ‘realistic’ looking version of the Minecraft world. The fact that no advanced screenings were laid on for critics only served to confirm its stinker status. Now, though, quite another story has replaced it: this thing is a stonking great hit, with deliriously fan-serviced audiences so loud and demonstrative that complaints have been made on Mumsnet and special noisy screenings have been laid on to try and contain the madness.  Part of me still wonders if the basic point of what A Minecraft Movie is has still been missed in its abrupt lurch from folly to crowd pleaser. Yes, it pays appropriate tribute to the game, veritably groaning with easter eggs. But at heart what Hess has crafted is a goofy and genuinely quite loveable homage to the ‘80s ‘quest’ movie. Think Willow, think Labyrinth, think The NeverEnding Story, think Legend.  The Minecraft world – in which everything is block shaped, and the sunny, safe days turn into monster-filled night every 10

Legendary Belgian director Ivo von Hove had a torrid time of it last time he was in in town: last year’s oddball ‘musical’ Opening Night was a notorious flop (although I liked it). Still, that clearly hasn’t deterred him or his producers Wessex Grove: Van Hove returns to the West End in 2025 in admittedly much safer territory as he tackles another play by Arthur Miller, the legendary US playwright who gave Van Hove his big UK break with his stunning 2014 Young Vic production of A View from the Bridge. This time out he’ll be tackling Miller’s breakthrough early classic All My Sons, about Joe Keller, a self-made businessman in 1943 America whose former business partner has gone to jail for selling defective equipment to the US airforce. Joe escaped any blame. But was that justice? It’s a classic play last seen here in a solid 2019 production at the Old Vic, with a cast headed up by Bill Pullman and Sally Field.  And it’s got an equally enviable ensemble in this 2025 incarnation: Bryan Cranston - who led Van Hove’s excellent Network - and Marianne Jean-Baptiste will star as Joe and Kate Keller, with Paapa Essiedu as their son Chris. Van Hove is a prolific and mercurial director, and the fact his View from the Bridge was an all-timer doesn’t mean this will be. But it’s an astonishing play and an astonishing cast - Van Hove’s plans for it will decide the difference between ‘good’ and ‘seminal’, but this one’s not going to be closing early. Tickets are on sale here. All My Sons is

Ncuti Gatwa doesn’t just share a regeneration with David Tennant. The current star of Doctor Who is the first since Tennant to display such a clear desire to get back on stage and make use of his enhanced profile to bag bigger roles. Last year he anchored the National Theatre’s hyperreal, warmly-reviewed The Importance of Being Earnest.  And this summer he’ll follow in the footsteps of longterm RSC associate Tennant and star in the company’s new West End drama. Born with Teeth is a new play by US writer Liz Duffy Edwards that concerns the relationship between Gatwa’s Christopher Marlowe and Edward Bluemel’s William Shakespeare. Set in 1591, the two-hander play sees the two legendary playwrights and pals flirt, fight and collaborate on Henry VI in paranoid late Elizabethan London.  An unknown American playwright coming in and writing a ‘sexy’ play about two of our greatest writers does have the slight air of fanfic to it, but the steadying hand of the RSC and its co-director Daniel Evans (who will direct here) suggests we’re on pretty safe ground.  After gamely joining in with the ensemble fun for Earnest, this two-hander is a real opportunity for Gatwa to give a proper star turn. And the same can be said for Killing Eve man Bluemel, who dabbled in stage work earlier in his career but hasn’t been back since. We don’t have a lot of rune reading for Who watchers here, but it is worth pointing out that it’s relatively unusual for a big West End show to start its run in the middle

It’s April now, and you can look forward to an enjoyably eclectic month on the London stage. There’s a little something for everyone: 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 production of Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape. But there’s one production that’s really piqued my curiosity, as the greatest director of his generation Robert Icke makes his debut as a playwright with a truly fascinating (not to mention controversial) looking play…  The best new London theatre openings in April 2025 Photo: Royal Court 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 G

It feels like barely a few days since massive biannual theatre ticket sale London Theatre Week – which is actually one month long – wrapped up. But hooray! Here’s the next big West End theatre sale! What sort of sucker would pay full price for a theatre ticket anyway? (We jest, of course: but it’s always work seeing if there’s a sale on the horizon before booking tickets, especially to older shows that often reduce their prices during slower bits of the year). Anyway, this sale – partnered with Time Out – is called the Spring Spectacular 2025, it takes in 66 theatre shows, and it lasts until April 14, with savings of up to 59 percent. It covers a bunch of big name West End shows including The Book of Mormon, Tina, Back to the Future, Wicked, MJ the Musical, Matilda the Musical, Starlight Express, Moulin Rogue!, Magic Mike Live and Starlight Express.  If I were to make a couple of recommendations it would be for the transfer to the Barbican of the Open Air Theatre’s wildly acclaimed production of Fiddler on the Roof, and hugely acclaimed US transfer Stereophonic, which is liable to sell out when the reviews drop if the reception is anything like it was in America.  Whatever you’re looking for, have a rummage round on the official site and see if you can snag a bargain you like the look of. The Spring Spectacular 2025 runs until April 14. The best new London theatre shows to book for in 2025. The Royal Court has announced a spectacularly eclectic 2025 season.

Maybe you remember the 2010 film Burlesque, which starred Christina Aguilera as a dancer who gets her big break at Cher’s struggling LA burlesque lounge. Maybe you don’t (the film was a modest success at best, mostly in the US). But one person who clearly hasn’t forgotten it is Aguilera herself, who has teamed up with the film’s write Steve Antin and fellow big name songstress Sia for a full blown musical adaptation of Burlesque that had tryouts in Manchester and Glasgow last year and is now set on a limited West End run this summer, replacing Mean Girls at the Savoy Theatre.  They’ve reworked the songs they wrote for the movie specially for this musical, which Aguilera is also a producer of.  Quoth the Dirrty singer: ‘I’m proud that Burlesque the Musical is coming to London’s West End!  Our journey of making this film to bringing this show to the stage has been so special and exciting.  Following our successful previews, having the show land in the West End later this year is a dream come true!’. New songs have also been written, by US singer Toderick Hall and Brit Jess Folley, both of whom played roles when the show played in Manchester and Glasgow last year; although casting is yet to be announced it certainly wouldn’t be particularly wild if they re-emerged in the London cast seeing as how they’re making money off it anyway. The show is written and produced by Steven Antin (who wrote and directed the film), with additional material by Kate Wetherhead. Curiously none of th

‘It’s a full feast of what new writing can look like!’ enthuses Royal Court artistic director David Byrne in a short phone chat to promote his latest season at the iconic new writing theatre. If Byrne’s first year of work at the Court was determinedly eclectic then his second, announced today, is more of the same, albeit insofar as the six plays it comprises are giddily, gloriously different from each other. It will get underway with a big late spring transfer for Breach Theatre’s acclaimed verbatim musical about After the Act (May 21-Jun 14), which concerns the devastating effect of Margaret Thatcher’s Section 28 on the UK LGBTQ community. Theatre nerds will probably be aware that it started life at Byrne’s former theatre the New Diorama (read our four star review here) – the whimsical but hard hitting show will transfer to the Court’s larger Downstairs theatre in expanded form. It will be followed a short return for last year’s hit play ECHO (Jun 27-Jul 5), which calls in as part of a global tour. The piece is involves a different performer every night reading it for the first time: guests confirmed include Mel Giedroyc, Nish Kumar and Juliet Stevenson. That will overlap with the previously announced, kill-for-a-seat revival of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis (Jun 12-Jul 5) which plays in the dinky Upstairs.  After that there will be a major new work from brilliant Irish experimental company Dead Centre with Deaf Republic (Aug 29-Sep 13). A collaboration with sign language poet

Fetch did not quite happen. Tina Fey’s Mean Girls musical was one of the biggest new West End openings of 2024, and was generally praised for being a very funny adaptation of the beloved millennial high school movie. But word on the actual songs was less strong, and by the time it opened here it had already closed on Broadway. It’s questionable whether the fact a film version of the musical being released earlier last year really helped. And the arrival in town this month of the very similar Clueless can’t have been a huge boost either.  In short, Mean Girls is leaving town this summer after running at the Savoy Theatre for about a year – a perfectly decent stint, but inevitably every musical that comes to town with an open-ended run hopes to stick around for a few years, and Mean Girls definitely isn’t doing that, or even coming close to the two years it managed on Broadway. Still, there’s good news for non-London-based fans of Cady Heron, the Plastics, and all the other high school eccentrics in Fey’s show will be embarking upon a UK tour next year, with dates to be announced.  Often when a musical’s closure is announced a few months in advance it means the ink has been dried on the deal for the next show to go into the theatre, but decorum dictates the current resident is allowed to announce its departure first. There are various rumours sloshing around regarding what’s next for the Savoy, including a musical adaptation of 2010 Christina Aguilera vehicle Burlesque that’s a

Superstar director Jamie Lloyd’s shows don’t always star massive celebrities, but it’s fair to say that you’d have to go back to the pre-pandemic era to find one that didn’t. So when it was announced that his superb 2019 Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita would be transferring to the huge London Palladium for the summer it did at least beg the question as to who would be starring as iconic Argentine politician Eva Perón. Last time out it was the talented but relatively obscure US performer Samantha Pauly. But the Palladium is a lot bigger, the run is a lot longer, and Lloyd is a much bigger deal these days. Anyway, long story short, screen star of the moment Rachel Zegler will follow in the footsteps of the likes of Madonna, Elaine Paige and Patti Lupone to star as Perón. It caps a busy spell in the Gen-Z star’s life: following the recent conclusion of her Broadway debut in a lively Romeo + Juliet, Zegler is currently on the promotional trail for her new Disney project, a live action update of Snow White in which she stars as the eponymous put upon princess (the film has generated various controversies, which you can read about here if that floats your boat). And now she’s making her West End and professional musical theatre debut at the Palladium, though absolutely no need to worry her lungs aren’t up to it – she first came to global attention via the songs on her YouTube channel, which led to her award-nominated breakthrough role in Ste

It doesn’t get more big time American musical than the long-awaited stage debut of The Greatest Showman. Which is why it’s quite charming that Disney’s latest megabucks musical will be debuting next year in our own humble Bristol.  It makes sense, of course. The family-friendly mega corporation’s most recent shows have had a British connection: Frozen was directed by Michael Grandage, and the imminent Hercules is co-written by former Young Vic boss Kwame Kwei-Armah; Frozen also lasted rather longer here than on Broadway. So that’s nice for the good people of Bristol: The Greatest Showman will debut at the city’s Hippodrome venue next spring. In terms of the show itself: well you know the deal. A gargantuan smash in 2017 – both theatrically and its massively successful soundtrack – The Greatest Showman started life on screen, though you’d be forgiven for assuming it pre-existed as a stage musical. It’s vanishingly rare these days for a live-action musical to debut on screen and not stage, and The Greatest Showman has a similar premise to the pre-existing Barnum, both being about the legendary circus impresario PT Barnum. The musical will be directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, whose other works include The Book of Mormon and Mean Girls (both on in London right now) and Hercules (which arrives this summer). Naturally it’ll include the songs from EGOT-winning duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul… and word has it they’ve written five new ones for the stage version, which will

Um renomado clube de comédia londrino atacou de forma bizarra as pessoas que tenham sido injectadas com Botox, alegando que há tanta gente assim no público que o ambiente ficou comprometido nos seus dois espaços na cidade britânica. Como resultado, o conceituado Top Secret Comedy Club – assim baptizado devido aos frequentes convidados secretos de primeira linha – está aparentemente a proibir a entrada de qualquer pessoa que tenha feito Botox. Num comunicado excêntrico – mas que parece ser a sério –, o clube afirmou que “a medida drástica para injectar mais emoção no clube surge depois de os artistas de stand-up terem partilhado as suas preocupações com o facto de as caras congeladas dos britânicos que usam Botox não reagirem às suas piadas”. Há muito para desvendar, e é claro que continua a ser totalmente possível que se trate de uma brincadeira. Afinal, estamos a falar de um clube de comédia e as alegações são bastante estranhas.  Mas seria muito improvável lançar um ataque a um grupo aleatório de pessoas se não houver um problema com elas. Partindo do princípio que é a sério... bem, presumivelmente as pessoas que fizeram Botox não são uma minoria protegida e podem ser banidas à vontade, mas não deixa de ser uma política de entrada bastante desagradável. As pessoas têm as suas próprias razões para fazer Botox! Se uma parte tão significativa do público tiver Botox e isso estiver a afectar visivelmente o ambiente do clube, talvez proibir todos eles não seja boa ideia. E há qu