2025 West End Play Reviews & Critics' Ratings

Critics Praise Gaten Matarazzo And Cast In RENT Revival At The Tom Stoppard Theatre

Aliya Al-Hassan • October 9, 2026

Set in New York's East Village, Rent follows a group of young artists, musicians and friends, navigating love, ambition and creativity while trying to build lives on their own terms. Inspired by Puccini's La Bohème, this iconic musical captures the joy, uncertainty and resilience of a generation determined to make every moment count. Featuring an unforgettable score and a story that continues to resonate, Rent is a powerful celebration of community, connection and a call to live every minute as if it were your last. No day but today.

Review Roundup: All-Male AS YOU LIKE IT Opens at the RSC, Starring Jonathan Groff

Nicole Rosky • October 7, 2026

The Royal Shakespeare Company just celebrated opening night of Daniel Evans’ production of William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. Let's see what the critics are saying...

Review Roundup: Richard E. Grant & Christine Baranski in HAY FEVER

Aliya Al-Hassan • October 2, 2026

The eccentric Bliss family – Judith, a recently retired actress, David, a self-absorbed novelist, and their two unconventional children – live in a world where reality slides easily into fiction. Upon entering this world, the weekend guests – a proper diplomat, a shy flapper, an athletic boxer and a fashionable sophisticate – are thrown into melodramatic scenes wherein their hosts profess emotions and react to situations that do not really exist. The comedic chaos ends only when the tortured visitors tip-toe out the door. Cleverly constructed and slightly cynical, this entertaining romp stars Richard E. Grant and Christine Baranski, making her West End debut.

Review Roundup: WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, Starring Gillian Anderson & Billy Crudup

Aliya Al-Hassan • October 1, 2026

Critics weigh in on Billy Crudup and Gillian Anderson's electric George and Martha in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? at @sohoplace. See what they said.

Review Roundup: James Graham's New Play, THE STANDARD OF LIVING

Aliya Al-Hassan • September 30, 2026

Olivier Award winner Rory Kinnear stars as John Maynard Keynes, the radical economist and member of the influential Bloomsbury Group who became the singular driving force behind arts funding in Britain and built a new and fairer financial model, that ultimately helped reshape the Western World in the aftermath of the First World War. Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova makes her West End debut as the celebrated ballet dancer Lydia Lopokova, a soloist with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes who was considered the embodiment of the new era of modernist ballet.

Review Roundup: Jesse Tyler Ferguson in TRU

Aliya Al-Hassan • September 28, 2026

Directed by the award-winning Rob Ashford, Tru is now open at the Menier Chocolate Factory, following the production’s New York run earlier this year. It's December 1975 and Truman Capote is alone in his New York apartment, reeling from a crisis that cost him friendship of the elite social circle he adored. Drawn entirely from Capote’s own words, this funny and heartbreaking play is an unflinching portrait of an artist at his breaking point, confronting the consequences of his most scandalous work.

Review: MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL, Starring David Suchet

UK / West End: Aliya Al-Hassan • October 20, 2026

The Orange Tree's Tom Littler is not afraid of variety. After staging a delightful and clever version of Love's Labour's Lost and Much Ado About Nothing, set in the grounds of a Richmond school, he has turned to T.S. Eliot’s 1936 verse drama, Murder In The Cathedral, set in the church opposite the theatre. With a star turn from veteran actor David Suchet, this thought-provoking production is as captivating as it is atmospheric.

Review: DANCE IS NOT FOR US, Barbican Centre

UK / West End: Matthew Paluch • October 19, 2026

Cie Omar Rajeh, the Lebanese choreographer and cultural architect has lost a lot - in basic terms his home and personal/professional life in Beirut. Rajeh is a big player in the Arab dance world having founded Maqamat in 2002, a “pioneering contemporary dance organisation”. Due to political unrest and the Beirut Port explosion in 2020, Rajeh and Maqamat relocated to Lyon, France.

Review: 4.48 PSYCHOSIS, Royal Ballet & Opera

UK / West End: Franco Milazzo • October 18, 2026

The idea that “art is not a mirror but a hammer” has been attributed to Bertolt Brecht, deployed by Leon Trotsky and could serve as the epitaph for Sarah Kane’s repertoire, not least her final work.

Review: ANGEL'S BONE, London Coliseum

UK / West End: Franco Milazzo • October 18, 2026

Whether intentionally or not, London’s opera houses have leaned hard into the Halloween season with an unspoken theme of “go bleak or go home”. Over in Covent Garden, there’s a revival of Philip Venables’s 4.48 Psychosis (adapted from Sarah Kane’s final play, completed shortly before she took her life aged just 28). The English National Opera, meanwhile, has plumped for something even darker.

Review: TWELFTH NIGHT, Starring Mathew Horne, Sheffield Crucible

UK / West End: Sofia Sandica • October 17, 2026

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night arrives at the Sheffield Crucible in a production directed by Jamie Glover that offers plenty to enjoy. Physical comedy, inventive lighting and live music give this interpretation considerable theatrical character, even if not every creative choice reaches its full potential.

Review: GANG OF THREE, Richmond Theatre

UK / West End: Aliya Al-Hassan • October 17, 2026

A battle for the soul of the Labour Party, rival political factions battling for power amid arguments about Europe, all set against an deep economic crisis. No, not our current politics in 2026, but 1970's Britain where the Labour Party's Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey and Tony Crosland clash as they debate who out of their 'gang of three' should become deputy party leader in 1972 and 1976, prime minister in 1976 and then leader of the opposition in 1980.

Review: SOME WOMAN, Starring Anne-Marie Duff, National Theatre

UK / West End: Cindy Marcolina • October 16, 2026

The National Theatre continue their commitment to new writing with a piece by Helen Edmundson. While this is wonderful in itself, this is not only a matter of having an original play on stage. Some Woman spotlights a category that’s often forgotten by the entertainment business, featuring a middle-aged woman as its protagonist. Anne-Marie Duff makes a splendid return to the National Theatre directed by Blanche McIntyre, portraying a woman who finds herself in a baffling position after a ten-year-old verbally abuses her on a train platform. The situation escalates, allowing Edmundson to weave a complex exploration of womanhood and misogyny in the 21st century.

Review: CADEL: LUNGS ON LEGS, Riverside Studios

UK / West End: Gary Naylor • October 16, 2026

Connor Delves delivers a remarkable one man show about a remarkable man

Review: OUR GHOST DRINKS MATCHA, The Etcetera Theatre

UK / West End: Amber-Rae Stobbs • October 16, 2026

'...the standout of the piece is the writing itself. Daye has a gift for calling out performative activism in a way that doesn’t feel accusatory... Our Ghost Drinks Matcha explores the grey area, the place where there isn’t a ‘happy ending’...'

Review: THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, Glyndebourne

UK / West End: Aliya Al-Hassan • October 16, 2026

If you want to bring a little Spanish warmth into your autumn, you could do much worse than head down to Sussex, where Glyndebourne's Autumn Season is now in full swing. In 1775, Beaumarchais created the character of Figaro in his play Le Barbier de Séville and over 250 years later, we are still reaping the rewards in Gioachino Rossini's operatic masterpiece, The Barber of Seville.

Review: GHOSTS, Jermyn Street Theatre

UK / West End: Cindy Marcolina • October 15, 2026

Helene Alving is about to inaugurate an orphanage dedicated to the memory of her late husband, an austere, unfaithful, and unpleasant man. Their son Oswald, who’d been sent away as a child to be protected from the inevitable scandals that would hit his father, returns home. His arrival comes with quite the baggage. Kwame Owusu directs Richard Eyre’s adaptation of Ibsen’s social drama, an exploration of legacy and the inescapability of the past. The production is rather sluggish and bland, but it features a phenomenal central performance by Flora Montgomery.

Review: TOM AT THE FARM, Barbican Theatre

UK / West End: Josh Maughan • October 15, 2026

Part Wuthering Heights, part God’s Own Country, this is a familiar tale viewed through an interesting lens. It doesn’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel, but it does need to give us a reason to look at it differently.

Review: THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, Glyndebourne

UK / West End: Aliya Al-Hassan • October 15, 2026

Glyndebourne first opened its manicured doors with a production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and ninety two years later, the opera begins its fourth Autumn Season. A revival of last summer's breezy production, originally directed by Mariame Clément, it leans into the deceptively simple comedy of the piece, embracing its much sharper edges with aplomb.

Review: HEATED RIVALRY: THE UNAUTHORIZED MUSICAL PARODY, Underbelly Soho

UK / West End: Cindy Marcolina • October 14, 2026

Heated Rivalry: The Unauthorized Musical Parody is simply hilarious. Dylan Marcaurele writes an abridged 75-minute run-through of the show where original songs coexist with referential numbers, creating an endlessly amusing and entertaining mix. The lyrics are so comically unpredictable that the piece is positively blindsiding.

Review: THE CHERRY ORCHARD, Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Harold Pinter Theatre

UK / West End: Gary Naylor • October 14, 2026

Kristin Scott Thomas and Stephen Mangan lead a starry cast in a play that can't quite locate the fragile centre of the swirl of relationships in rural Russia

Review: MANON, Royal Ballet & Opera

UK / West End: Matthew Paluch • October 14, 2026

It's impressive to have the same work showing at two companies simultaneously, and such is the case for Kenneth MacMillan’s 1974 full-evening work Manon. The ballet is currently in season at the Paris Opera and also opened last night at the Royal Ballet and Opera. Leading the cast are Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé as the doomed lovers Manon and Des Grieux.

Review: A BRIEF CASE OF CRAZY, Wilton's Music Hall

UK / West End: Cheryl Markosky • October 13, 2026

Rollicking physical comedy love story – including mime, music, dance and puppets – performed by three young talented performers with great comic timing.

Review: THE BANALITY OF EVIL: HANNAH ARENDT, FRANCE, 1940, Arcola Theatre

UK / West End: Gary Naylor • October 13, 2026

Doktor Arendt's ideas have never been more needed here than they are right now

Review: THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, Richmond Theatre

UK / West End: Cindy Marcolina • October 9, 2026

Shirley Jackson’s 1959 gothic novel skyrocketed back to recognition in 2018 when it inspired Mike Flanagan’s Netflix sensation of the same name. It’s time for theatre to get its share now, with Stef Smith (of Nora: A Doll’s House fame) adapting Jackson’s original material into a ghostly examination of resentment. Paranormal investigator Dr. John Montague has invited a handful of guests to help him find scientific evidence of the existence of the supernatural at Hill House. As the group begins to experience a series of unexplained events, it becomes apparent that there’s more to the mystery of Hill House, and our characters need to look inward. Directed by Martin Constantine, it’s a decent choice for this spooky season.

Review: END OF THE WORLD AND HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND, Barbican Theatre

UK / West End: Gary Naylor • October 9, 2026

Extraordinary spectacle delivers in Murakami adaptation that doesn't quite land