Local News
Grab the wigs – we’re going to the theatre! We meet the audience superfans going crazy for cosplay
Skeleton suits for Phantom of the Opera, garish wigs for Beetlejuice, a Don’t Tell Mama dress for Cabaret … our critic pulls on her cat ears and leotard to investigate a wild new crazeIt’s an hour before curtain-up and the queue outside the theatre is full of green wigs and blue faces, all ami...
Local messages
Matt Smith to star in Jack Thorne’s new West End play The Humans
The play, based on Matt Haig’s 2013 novel of the same name, follows an extraterrestrial sent to Earth and tasked with preventing human advancement.
A one-part wonder! The West End’s streamlined Harry Potter and the Cursed Child works like magic
Palace theatre, LondonFive hours have been trimmed to three for this new version but it is packed with magic moments and superb performancesTen years on from its premiere, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has been transformed from an epic two-part play into a richly absorbing one-part production. A...
Get Weekly Updates
Get the headlines in your inbox every week.
New Wetherspoons pub to open in central London
Major new J D Wetherspoon to open in the London Trocadero
John Leeson obituary
Actor who provided the voice for the ‘tin dog’ K9 in the BBC’s Doctor Who and also worked on ITV’s Beadle’s AboutJohn Leeson, who has died aged 83, was a genial character actor who provided the voice of the much-loved robotic sidekick K9 in the popular BBC TV series Doctor Who. Originally ...
Oxford Street pedestrianisation adds up to 11 minutes to bus journeys, residents claim
Residents say the 6pm eastbound Route 98 bus used to last 17 minutes and now takes up to 28
The Lives of Others review – Keira Knightley brings star power to Robert Icke’s Stasi drama
Adelphi theatre, LondonTheatre wunderkind’s adaptation of the Oscar-winning film has plenty of suspenseful stagecraft but struggles to match its subtletyAnother new show, another old story. This film-to-stage adaptation is from the 2006 German-language romantic thriller about Stasi surveillance an...
‘Fear is contagious’: why horror shows are taking over the New York stage
Hit London plays 2:22, Paranormal Activity and A Ghost in Your Ear are now spooking audiences on and off Broadway amid high demand for communal experiencesAs we escaped the restrictions of the pandemic, with many also trying to escape the smartphone addiction that was exacerbated by it, there was wi...
‘I laughed so hard my Tampax fell out’: Michael Gambon’s pranks revealed by the stars he cracked up
He made Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry Potter fart, left Judi Dench unable to control herself and told a fry-up fantasy about Helen Mirren. A new biography details the star’s mischiefJasper Rees’s authorised biography of Michael Gambon, published three years after the great actor’s death, has nuan...
As mega-hit Into the Woods wows the West End, what’s the secret weapon of this Sondheim spectacular?
With its shimmering forest and its plunge into darkness and destruction, this fairytale romp bagged an Olivier for its lighting – and, reveals designer Aideen Malone, it wasn’t even finishedFor a minute I worry that Aideen Malone might return her Olivier award. “It’s funny that I won an awar...
Derren Brown turns into Nostradamus – and I predict you’ll submit to one gasp-inducing stunt after another
Apollo theatre, LondonProphecies are impossibly fulfilled by the superstar who takes his cue from the legendary French seer in his show Only HumanDo we have free will – or are the words I am about to write, the four stars twinkling atop this review, pre-ordained? That’s the stuff Derren Brown co...
Amy Winehouse musical in development for West End
Stage show based on late singer reportedly set to feature her best-loved songs with involvement from her father MitchA musical based on Amy Winehouse is in development for London’s West End.The project is still in early stages with Catherine Schreiber, a Tony award-winning producer (Cabaret, Rent)...
Martin Guerre review – return of Les Mis duo’s melodrama reveals a surprise new hero
Old Vic theatre, LondonMatthew Warchus directs a radical and intimate revival of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s musical about a Frenchman who flees homeSome revivals overstate their revisionism but Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s musical, which premiered 16 years after...
West End to get another lesson from The History Boys two decades on
Nation’s favourite play makes London comeback amid renewed debate about future of humanities teachingThe History Boys is to return to the West End for the first time in two decades, with a warning from its director of an “almost terminal decline” in humanities teaching in state schools.Nichola...
Ilford Boy review – Barbra Streisand teaches teen to smile about the way we are
Donmar Warehouse, LondonIn Danny Lee Wynter’s drama, a quiet boy struggles amid the swirl of his family until a mercurial friend offers him another futureBroad Essex accents fill the stage in Danny Lee Wynter’s sprawling family drama. The busy script from the Black Superhero playwright is cramme...
The Cherry Orchard review – Kristin Scott Thomas makes a modern matriarch in trad, earthy Chekhov
Harold Pinter theatre, LondonThis Ranevskaya feels of our time but Conor McPherson’s plain-speaking adaptation, co-starring Stephen Mangan, doesn’t always hit you emotionallyThere have been several starry Madame Ranevskayas in recent times. The prodigal Russian landowner, returning to her belove...
‘I knew I was being followed’: Keira Knightley on her hacking nightmare – and new Stasi spy play The Lives of Others
As the Oscar-winning Stasi surveillance film hits the stage, Knightley and co-star Luke Thompson talk about the paranoia at its heart, the cost of theatre tickets nowadays – and their fury at ringtones in the stallsUnpacking assorted tubs of carrot sticks and salad, Keira Knightley winces apologet...
Sacha Baron Cohen to star in Quentin Tarantino’s West End play The Popinjay Cavalier
The production marks the Hollywood director’s first play written for the stage, which he will also directSacha Baron Cohen will headline Quentin Tarantino’s play The Popinjay Cavalier when it premieres on the West End in London in March 2027.The production marks the Hollywood director’s first...
Rent review – Jonathan Larson’s New York bohos move into the West End and unpack their passions
Tom Stoppard theatre, LondonStranger Things’ Gaten Matarazzo leads the grief-stricken 90s musical about friends living under the threat of AidsIs Rent one of the musical greats? It’s a forever fan favourite – this new production extended its run even before the official opening – and its ori...
Franz & Marie review – Woyzeck folk musical finds heart amid the horror
Charing Cross theatre, LondonBüchner’s jagged masterpiece about a soldier’s descent is told with enchanting and stirring songs that occasionally defuse its stark terrorWhen Georg Büchner died aged 23 in 1837, he left behind Woyzeck as a bundle of papers that would be ordered and reordered for ...