London theatre had another astonishing year in 2025 with week after week of exciting productions which illustrated that we are the epicentre of the stage world through the sheer diversity of what’s on offer. From small productions in local theatres to West End A-List blockbusters, and hundreds of options along the scale, there really was something for everyone (and, despite ticket price concerns, for every wallet, if you really look).
As for 2026, well, it’s already rocketing ahead on the theatre front, with the likes of All My Sons (Wyndham’s), Kenrex (The Other Palace), The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (@sohoplace), Most Favoured (Soho Theatre), Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo (Young Vic) and Paddington (Savoy Theatre) all still on stage.
And what is to come? Well, this little lot, for starters:
Sheridan Smith in Woman in Mind
Oliver Rosser
Sheridan Smith returns to the stage – and the venue where she triumphed as Shirley Valentine – alongside Romesh Ranganathan in Alan Ayckbourn’s play about a woman simultaneously living a mundane and an extravagant fantasy life after a head injury, directed by Michael Longhurst.
Orphans
PR handout
Lyle Kessler’s Tony-nominated comedy-drama play about a pair of orphan in brothers in Philadelphia, one petty criminal, Treat, who keeps his younger brother trapped indoors a childhood world. When Treat kidnaps a stranger for a shakedown, their strange existence comes crashing down. Stars Forbes Masson (Farm Hall, Laughing Boy), Chris Walley (The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Young Offenders), and Fred Woodley Evans (Outlying Islands, Bridgerton). Should be electric in the intimate Jermyn Street Theatre.
-Billy-Crudup-(Will-Kane)-and-Company--Photo-Johan-Persson-(2).jpeg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
HIGH NOON. Denise Gough (Amy Fowler), Billy Crudup (Will Kane) and Company
Johan Persson
Exciting Hollywood fare with screen hero Billy Crudup taking on the Gary Cooper role in a stage adaptation of the classic 1952 Western. It’s the theatre debut of writer Eric Roth (who wrote Dune: Part One and won an Oscar for Forrest Gump) and is directed by Thea (Equus) Sharrock. Denise Gough stars opposite Crudup to add further clout to this tense story of a Marshall counting down in real time to the arrival of a bad guy on the noon train.
Carrie Cracknell’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s modern classic about human desire, mathematics and much else besides has gained extra poignancy following the writer’s death earlier this month at the age of 87.
Director Jordan Fein bring his Fiddler on the Roof magic to the Young Vic with this Arthur Miller play about the Jewish community in Brooklyn in 1938 reacting to news of events in Germany. Olivier-winner Nancy Carroll plays Sylvia, who loses her ability to walk as she is consumed by word of the Nazi atrocities happening across the water.
Rebecca Lucy Taylor
Jono White
Rebecca Lucy Taylor – AKA Self Esteem – takes to the London stage again in this revival of David Hare’s play about a Janis Joplin-style 60s counter-culture singer lost in the wreckage of her own rebellion. It was first performed at the Royal Court in 1975 with Helen Mirren in the role, and Taylor is sure to bring some raucous new energy – and social commentary – to this hotly anticipated show.
John Proctor is the Villain
John Proctor is the Villain
Press handout
Kimberly Bellflower’s contemporary response to The Crucible, a massive Broadway hit, comes direct from New York with producers Sonia Friedman and Wessex Grove behind it, directed by Tony Winner Danya Taymor, (The Crucible had its London premiere at the Royal Court’s opening season in 1965: this is the 70th anniversary season)
Starring Strictly hero Johannes Rabede, this hit musical returns to the West End for a limited run. Cyndi Lauper is behind the music of course, and here Nikolai Foster directs, as the show tells the story of a Northampton shoe factory owner who has his life – and business – turned around when he meets a drag queen called Lola.
Sadie Sink in Romeo and Juliet
Press handout
Stranger Things star Sadie Sink (who was also Tony nominated on Broadway for the aforementioned John Proctor is the Villain) stars alongside Noah Jupe in Shakespeare’s play directed by Robert Icke, whose Oedipus was one of the highlights of 2024,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
An exciting revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest starring Aaron Pierre (a top Bond contender) as Randle P. McMurphy, the role made famous by Jack Nicholson in the film adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel. This stage version written by Dale Wasserman and here directed by Clint Dyer, brings colonialism into the mix as Nurse Ratched’s placid psychiatric unit is stirred up by the rampant McMurphy.
Ralph Fiennes returns to play Sir Henry Irving, the greatest star of the Victorian stage, as this acclaimed production transfers from Theatre Royal Bath, with Miranda Raison starring as Ellen Terry who tries to recruit him for her company.
The ongoing reappraisal of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s back catalogue continues: Cats reopens at the Open Air Theatre later this month, while Sam Ryder is the messiah in this biblical show, directed by Tim Sheader, choreographed by Drew McOnie and designed by Tom Scutt.
Supplied
In a move that precisely no one saw coming, Hollywood Chris (Star Trek, Wonder Woman) Pine stars in a reworking of Chekhov’s lesser-known drama by Simon Stone, whose adaptation of Ibsen’s The Lady From the Sea with Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln caused a splash at this venue in 2025.