Aliya Al-Hassan

Puccini's tear-jerker La bohème is always a crowd-pleaser for any opera festival. This production at The Grange Festival is the first opera from French actor-turned-director David Geselson who created it for Opéra National de Nancy Lorraine in 2025. Featuring some strong singing and exquisite playing from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the production loses clarity by Geselson's focus on art and politics.

A new version of Handel's 1724 opera Giulio Cesare is always an exciting prospect. The love story between Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, with the backdrop of war with Egypt, political ambition and domestic unrest is ripe for reinterpretation. Indeed, Handel and his librettist the librettist Nicola Francesco Haym, wrote the opera as a tragi-comedy, but David Alden's new production at The Grange Festival piles on the slapstick to such a extent that it undermines some of the excellent vocals in display.

Nearly twenty years since its original run at the National Theatre and after worldwide success, Joey has come home. Back on the Olivier stage, the emotional and technical jugganaut that is War Horse has lost none of its impact or thrill.

What a joy it is to see Olivier Award-winning The P Word returning to the Bush Theatre, along with original cast members Esh Alladi and Waleed Akhtar. A deeply moving, heartfelt and important play for our times.

For musical fans, it's been a long time coming, but the wait is finally over. Beetlejuice: The Musical has crossed the pond and landed in London. It's loud, brash, and certainly won't please Tim Burton purists. 

Former Prime Minister Jim Hacker and former Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey are reunited in poignant and nostalgic fashion in Jonathan Lynn's I'm Sorry, Prime Minister, the final chapter for two characters so beloved from the TV series that made them British institutions.

Ahead of English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer 2026, Artistic Director Aaron S. Watkin discusses the evolution of the programme, supporting developing artists, and why creating space for individuality, mentorship and collaboration is so important at the beginning of a dancer’s career.

Il Turco In Italia may not be Rossini's most famous work, but if there is any justice, this wonderful revival of Mariame Clément's 2021 Festival production will bring this opera to much wider attention. An uproarious comedy accompanied by a rousingly galloping score and gorgeous vocals; it is the escapism and pure fun we all need right now.

Tosca is Giacomo Puccini's fast-paced thriller of an opera; brimming with tension and political intrigue. For many it is Puccini's best work, yet incredibly it has never been staged at Glyndebourne. Until now. It is a show of firsts all round: the first mainstage production for director Ted Huffman and is the first Puccini opera for Glyndebourne’s music director Robin Ticciati, who conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the first of two performance runs.

Author John Le Carré famously banned stage versions of his work, and he may well have felt quietly vindicated with his decision having seen David Eldridge's adaptation of his third book, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Jeremy Herrin directs a cinematic and darkly-tinged production that ends up being more style over substance.

It's nearly twenty years since Daniel Radcliffe first tried to throw off the Harry Potter shackles in the 2007 version of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play Equus. Now director Lindsay Posner has revived Shaffer's deeply traumatic story about the fluctuating relationship between a psychiatrist, Dr Dysart, and a teenage boy, Alan Strang. Featuring a remarkable cast and exquisite visuals, this is one not to be missed.

2026 marks the first time that Glyndbourne has staged Puccini's Tosca, a devastating opera of love and betrayal. It’s also a first for Glyndebourne Music Director Robin Ticciati, who conducts this powerfully dramatic piece, as well as a Festival debut from exciting American director Ted Huffman.

It is now a few days since I left Treowen, a gorgeous 17th century Manor House set in the even-more-gorgeous Welsh countryside and I am still processing the experience. To call Lemon Difficult's The Key of Dreams simply an 'immersive experience' is to sell it very short. Where else can you spend 24 hours with the run of an entire house, crammed to the rafters with puzzles, clues to dark secrets and sinister rituals, where every decision you make may change the course of everything that happens next?

First staged last year at Theatre Royal Bath, Gary Oldman directs, set-designs, co-produces and performs Samuel Beckett’s 1958 one-act play, Krapp's Last Tape at London's Royal Court, the theatre where the play made its UK debut back in 1958. But this production is no exercise in ego, but an emotionally involved and truly captivating performance.

Titas Halder's new play Foal is named after some of the night terrors that visit his protagonist as he sinks into a mental black hole. A study of personal relationships and a fight to find compassion in an often hostile world, we follow A.K., a man recalling and reliving sections of his life as his demons close in on him. He lives on an island with his family and is one of only two Asian children in his school. His childhood, teens and adulthood are punctuated by an undercurrent of racism which, along with a highly problematic relationship with his mother, combine to create a turmoil in his mind that has devastating consequences.

Joe Penhall's incendiary play, Blue/Orange, was garlanded with awards after its 2000 debut at the National Theatre, winning the Olivier, Critics' Circle and Evening Standard awards for Best New Play in 2001. It has been revived many times and endures as its themes remain both prescient and urgent. Now the tiny OSO Arts Centre in Barnes plays host, and it is as intense and provocative as ever.

Following a sell-out run at Theatre Royal Bath, David Hare's play, Grace Pervades, is a love letter to theatre, following the professional and personal partnership of legendary Victorian theatrical duo Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. Together they performed over 27 years, changing the face and status of theatre.

The BBC Proms returns in summer 2026, presenting eight weeks of world-class music from an array of leading orchestras, conductors and soloists from across the UK and around the world.

First seen at last year's Edinburgh fringe, Jules Coyle's semi-verbatim play, Managed Approach, now comes to Riverside Studios for a short, but important run. Between 2014 and 2020, a local government initiative in Holbeck, Leeds allowed sex workers to operate under certain regulations and was known as the Managed Approach. The play explores the experiences of both sex workers and residents whose lives are impacted by the scheme in a number of surprising and sometimes shocking ways.

On Avenue Q, puppets and people intermingle in this show about the trials and tribulations of life as a grown-up: love, sex, money, race, and how to tell your roommate he’s gay. After two decades, the three-time Tony Award-winning musical Avenue Q has returned to the West End in all its glory. With original Broadway director Jason Moore and original puppet designer Rick Lyon, a brand new cast takes on the puppet show with a difference.