London Theatre Reviews

Read the latest London theatre reviews on the newest openings across the West End and beyond. Discover more about the latest must-see West End shows, Off-West End productions, and why you need to see shows in London. Scroll through our full theatre reviews listings of London musicals, plays, and live events from our London Theatre critics.

Sort byMost recent
  • Photo credit: Olivia Fines and Richard Winsor (Photo by Paul Coltas)

    You should - and will - be dancing along to this disco inferno of a show, part of a touring run that is doing a London stint at Sadler's Wells' West End house, the Peacock Theatre. From the Bee Gees soundtrack to the famous white suit and boogieing cast, it's a blast from the past - though one with surprising emotional heft alongside its retro pleasures. If your vague memory of the 1977 movie, which made John Travolta a star and disco a worldwide craze, is of colourful dance floors and finger...

    Peacock Theatre
  • Photo credit: Our Generation at National Theatre (Photo by Johan Persson)

    Does our tendency to create stereotypes stem from our brains taking mental shortcuts? When trying to understand someone, we're much more likely to rely on a set of assumptions that we learn through the media, rather than taking the time to find out more about someone for ourselves. No matter how open-minded we perceive ourselves to be, this all happens within the unconscious inner workings of our mind. When it comes to Gen Z — whether it's calling them Tik Tok junkies or Netflix obsessives —...

    Dorfman Theatre
  • Photo credit: Suzette Llewellyn, Ruby Barker, Velile Tshabalala in Running With Lions (Photo by Jahvin Morgan Photography)

    Oddly enough, the classic family drama has become increasingly hard to come by in post-pandemic London theatre. Sian Carter's debut play, developed and co-produced by Talawa Theatre, steps into that gap in the market with relish.Carter assembles her chess pieces on the board carefully: single mother Gloria (Velile Tshabalala), returns from a stint in a mental health clinic to her parents' home, where her sixteen-year-old daughter, Imani (Ruby Barker), longs to study art in America. Gloria's...

    Lyric Hammersmith
  • Photo credit: The Forest cast (Photo by The Other Richard)

    The first Florian Zeller play to premiere not in his native French but in English, The Forest also marks this writer's most disturbing and alluring play in years, not least as delivered in a production from an empathic Jonathan Kent that matches the text's deepening sense of mystery. Bringing together a starry cast as seems of late to be the Hampstead Theatre norm, the 80-minute play feels like a riff on the likes of Pinter's Betrayal while wandering toward various tropes of the horror genre...

  • Photo credit: Ash Hunter (Heathcliff), Lucy McCormick (Cathy) and Nandi Bhebhe (The Moor) (Photo by Steve Tanner)

    Wuthering Heightsis an incredibly difficult book to adapt. Most of the characters have the same names (yes, we all know that Catherine and Heathcliff but there are several others with the same moniker), and almost everyone is related. The narrative takes place both in the present and the past, and the overall aesthetic and plot of the Emily Brontë novel is more moody vibes than forward-moving action. That's a tricky recipe for theatre, but adapter and director Emma Rice does her darndest,...

    Lyttelton Theatre
  • Photo credit: Dirty Dancing cast (Photo by Mark Senior)

    ​​Nobody puts Dirty Dancing in a corner — at least not for long. The stage musical version of the iconic 1987 movie about a ballroom-fuelled summer romance first hit the West End in 2006, returned in 2013, and is now back again, stopping at the Dominion during its national tour. Judging by the hysterical delight of its opening night audience, it'll be a very happy homecoming.To its credit, this Dirty Dancing — also scripted by the film's creator Eleanor Bergstein — thoroughly understands its...

    Dominion Theatre
  • Photo credit: George Fouracres as Hamlet, Polly Frame as Gertrude, Irfan Shamji as Claudius (Photo by Johan Persson)

    A mad production of a play about madness, Sean Holmes's new Hamlet marks the first time for this most oft-performed tragedy at the Globe's indoor playhouse. Say what you will about a sweary, unbridled staging that is likely to divide opinion, Holmes's take on a text sometimes undertaken as an act of duty certainly isn't dull.Indeed, I laughed out loud when the wonderful Ed Gaughan - the play's resident guitarist making an 11th-hour appearance as the Gravedigger - asks the audience whether we're...

    Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
  • Photo credit: Paapa Essiedu and Lennie James in A Number (Photo courtesy of Old Vic)

    It's 20 years since Caryl Churchill's spry, elliptical cloning play premiered at the Royal Court with Michael Gambon and Daniel Craig, and it remains a fascinating chamber piece for a talented pair of actors - as we see here with the great Lennie James and Paapa Essiedu in this anniversary revival.James plays Salter, who, following the death of his young son, had him cloned in order to have a second chance at parenting him. But the doctor actually created multiple unauthorised versions - the...

    Old Vic
  • Photo credit: The Glow (Photo by Manuel Harlan)

    Alistair McDowall's supernatural thriller, The Glow, centres on a woman who holds a mysterious glow. It's both ambitious and complex, while also confusing in parts, probably requiring more than one viewing to make sense of the matters that it grapples with.The drama begins in 1863. A spiritual medium Mrs. Lyall (a wickedly cruel Rakie Ayola) collects a neglected woman from an asylum (Ria Zmitrowicz), using her to connect with other spiritual realms. Zmitrowicz is perfectly cast as the troubled...

    Royal Court

Subscribe to our newsletter to unlock exclusive London theatre updates!

Special offers, reviews and release dates for the best shows in town.

You can unsubscribe at any time. Privacy Policy