Aliya Al-Hassan - Page 4

It's 20 years since Anoushka Shankar made her Proms debut, along with her father Ravi Shakar. Since then she has eclipsed even his enduring reputation as a world-renowned sitarist. Now a multi-Grammy-nominated artist, a sitar virtuoso and prolific composer, Shankar makes a triumphant return to the Royal Albert Hall for her fifth Prom: the world-premiere performance of her deeply personal ‘Chapters’ trilogy of albums.

Last seen in London over 35 years ago, Drew McOnie's inaugural season as Artistic Director of Regent's Park Open Air Theatre ends with him directing and choreographing a new production of Lerner & Loewe’s Scottish fantasy musical Brigadoon.

Emmy and Tony Award-winner Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) brings his acclaimed, Tony Award-winning performance to the Barbican this Summer in Good Night, Oscar – direct from a critically acclaimed Broadway season. What did the critics think?

Whether you are a fan of the franchise or not, the next actor to play James Bond is always headline news. Jordan Waller's frothy comedy A Role To Die For makes its London transfer from Cirencester's Barn Theatre, following a frantic search for the next Bond.

Fresh from a sold-out Melbourne season, the Australian Shakespeare Company serve up a solid, but slightly staid production of the Bard's Macbeth in the beautiful setting of London's Kew Gardens.

The Australian Shakespeare Company returns to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew for a charming take on Lewis Carroll's beloved Alice in Wonderland.

Rosamund Pike (Saltburn) makes her National Theatre debut as Jessica. Writer Suzie Miller and director Justin Martin reunite following their global phenomenon Prima Facie with this searing examination of modern masculinity and motherhood.

How do you follow up a blistering international success such as Prima Facie? Former lawyer-turned-playwright Suzie Miller now reunites with director Justin Martin for Inter Alia, which will surely create just as much impact. 

Burlesque the Musical has finally arrived in London. Loosely based on the 2010 film starring Cher and Christina Aguilera, Burlesque moves from LA to New York, as small-town girl Ali comes to the big city to search for her birth mother. On the way she starts working in a burlesque club as a waitress, only to become (spoiler alert) the main act. So far, so predictable.

Now on its third revival, Rodula Gaitanou's heart-stopping version of Verdi's tragic La Traviata is as affecting as ever. Opening with courtesan Violetta gasping for air, it never lets up its hold on the senses.

Adapted from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, director Richard Jones’s glorious Falstaff makes a welcome return to Glyndebourne, losing none of its charm or deft comedy. It is playful, witty and a pure delight.

There are productions that herald huge amounts of fanfare and and others that creep up and surprise you. Beth Steel's wonderfully human play, 'Till the Stars Come Down, is the latter. A surprise hit at the National Theatre last year, this sharply comic and deeply touching family drama now makes its deserved West End transfer.

After a sell-out premiere at the start of 2024, Our 1972 - the acclaimed queer rom-com by Josh Maughan - returns to the London stage this summer in a reimagined revival at Riverside Studios.

Stereophonic mines the agony and the ecstasy of creation as it zooms in on a music studio in 1976. Here, an up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself suddenly on the cusp of superstardom. The ensuing pressures could spark their breakup — or their breakthrough.

Even ardent opera fans may struggle to recall the story or the score for Mazeppa. Based on a poem by Pushkin, Tchaikovsky's opera has been unjustly overshadowed by his Eugene Onegin. Last staged at the London Coliseum in 1984, Grange Park Opera have landed a coup by engaging the English National Opera orchestra to play for David Pountney’s excellent new production.

A play within a play is not a new concept, but Say It Again, Sorry’s ...Earnest? brings something quite new to the stage. Having come a long way since its premiere at Islington's Pleasance in 2019, the show follows a rather tortuous production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest which loses cast members one by one, only to replace them with unsuspecting members of the audience.

Just how much fun can you have at an oratorio about a Old Testament tale of jealousy, madness and death? Well, quite a lot as it happens at the return of Barry Kosky's remarkable production of Handel's Saul. This staging is opera at its most theatrical, with severed heads, a breast-feeding witch, a gay subplot and more twerking than a Beyoncé concert.

Grange Park Opera has opened its new season with a crowd-pleaser. Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly remains problematic, with its story of a Japanese teenage geisha, impregnated and cruelly abandoned by an American lieutenant. However, it is still wildly popular, mainly due to its ravishing score.

Return to the forest this summer – a dream world of flying fairies, contagious fogs and moonlight revels. The seating is wrapped around the action while the immersive tickets allow the story to be followed on foot. Following its critically-acclaimed run in 2019, the Bridge Theatre’s five-star production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream returns for a limited run.

Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey, an international collaboration between Glasgow-based Vanishing Point and Kanagawa Arts Theatre of Yokohama, Japan (in association with Tramway) picked up four awards at the 2025 CATS, which were presented at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre today, Sunday June 8, 2025. The special guest presenter was leading writer, director and panto dame extraordinaire Johnny McKnight.