Explore West End show reviews and critics' ratings from London's top productions.
1965, New York City. Trevor Copeland and Arthur Brightman’s romance is against the law. In their secret nightclub act, “Midnight,” they perform love songs in an act of defiance of a world that demands they stay hidden. As tensions rise at the start of a historic movement, Trevor and Arthur are torn between their own surreptitious affair and the oncoming storm of social revolution. What did the critics think?
A contemporary family wakes up in a Greek myth and can’t seem to find a way out of their hellish destiny. Writer and director Simon Stone is joined by the same creative team that brought the “fantastically original, gripping and magnificent” (The Guardian) The Lady from the Sea to life; set designer Lizzie Clachan, costume designer Mel Page, music by Stefan Gregory, lighting designer Nick Schlieper, and casting director Jessica Ronane CDG.
The legendary rock opera by lyricist Tim Rice composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar redefined the Broadway musical and 40 years later it remains a beloved classic. The instantly recognisable tunes and daringly contemporary lyrics made it one of the most popular albums of all-time, selling over seven million copies, as well as creating a truly global smash hit, with sold-out productions in more than 40 countries.
Sinatra The Musical is now open at the Aldwych Theatre. The production stars Joel Harper-Jackson as Frank Sinatra, Ana Villafañe as the movie goddess Ava Gardner, and more. See what the critics are saying in BroadwayWorld's Review Roundup.
Performances are underway for the new stage adaptation of James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, starring Mischa Barton in her UK stage debut. Inspired by Billy Wilder’s legendary film noir masterpiece. Check out what the critics are saying...
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.
1965, New York City. Trevor Copeland and Arthur Brightman’s romance is against the law. In their secret nightclub act, “Midnight,” they perform love songs in an act of defiance of a world that demands they stay hidden. As tensions rise at the start of a historic movement, Trevor and Arthur are torn between their own surreptitious affair and the oncoming storm of social revolution. What did the critics think?
In Midnight at the Never Get, time is not a straightforward thing. It’s never clear what’s real and what’s fiction, how old the characters are, or what decade we’re in. We’re hearing Gershwin-esque jazz standards, but also references to “peaceniks” and Woody Allen.
It's an outstanding win for Spain in the World Cup – and for the sizzling Spanish National Orchestra in their BBC Proms debut. Both display tremendous talent and teamwork in their respective fields on a night to remember.
Richard Strauss's opera within an opera, Ariadne aux Naxos, is a curious beast: a hybrid of spoken word and singing, a mix of musical influences and themes which ask whether high art can ever mix with popular entertainment. Two rival musical companies – a burlesque group and a serious opera company – must give their performances simultaneously at the request of the richest man in Vienna.
Finally, prog gets its Prom. The BBC's heart is unarguably in the right place in handing the genre's back catalogue to their Concert Orchestra, in tribute to a 'pioneering, British-driven movement' rendered, as the billing has it, 'on an orchestral scale'. And yet the result falls a fair way short of the ambition.
The Royal Ballet School annual Royal Opera House matinee is a big deal, but perhaps this year more than ever. 2026 marks the centenary of the school, and considering this when watching the performance amplifies what we see on the stage even more than usual.
Black Dyke Band brings its popular programme of classics and movie music, written or arranged for brass, to the BBC Proms. Showcasing their industrial roots and professional virtuosity, they prove why they are 'the best-known brass band in the world'.
After their appearance at the London Coliseum in 2024, the State Ballet of Georgia return to the capital with a brand new version of Swan Lake. The Tbilisi-based company’s draw is its artistic director, the venerated ballerina Nina Ananiashvili, who performed in the Bolshoi and American Ballet Company and who has done fine things with this talented company.
If the Last Night is about waving Union Jacks until arms ache, the First Night had some of that feeling too — albeit a different flag. The Proms this time around will commemorate the 250th anniversary of United States declaring bye-bye to Blighty and plotting its own course into history. Before the strains of “Jerusalem” fade away for another year, the Royal Albert Hall will see both the LA Philharmonic and New York’s Met Orchestra take the stage and Marin Alsop will conduct a night of Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin. Yuja Wang gives Samuel Barber’s Piano Concerto its first Proms outing on the Last Night, there are world premieres from Wynton Marsalis and Jessie Montgomery plus a centenary celebration of Miles Davis’ work.
What does home mean to you? Is it the place, the people, the bricks and mortar? Liz Richardson's autobiographical one-woman show is a gentle look at what home means to your identity and how the environment of your childhood can influence your later life.
During his near-half century leading the FBI, J Edgar Hoover used illegal surveillance techniques on thousands of Americans allegedly connected with communism, curbed the influence of civil rights leaders, and caused damage to the US labour movement from which it has never recovered. A high-camp comedy musical about this sinister figure’s life, then, may seem like a tall order.
The culture wars surrounding grooming gangs have never felt more poisonous. With the right-wing press champing at the bit to use organised child abuse as fodder for anti-immigrant narratives, and the details of how such abuse actually occurs hidden in the weeds of abandoned inquiries, there is something to be said for taking a step back and returning our focus to the lives of the young victims.
A contemporary family wakes up in a Greek myth and can’t seem to find a way out of their hellish destiny. Writer and director Simon Stone is joined by the same creative team that brought the “fantastically original, gripping and magnificent” (The Guardian) The Lady from the Sea to life; set designer Lizzie Clachan, costume designer Mel Page, music by Stefan Gregory, lighting designer Nick Schlieper, and casting director Jessica Ronane CDG.
There is a dig at Simon Stone in the National Theatre's new Misanthrope, a jab at ultra-contemporary classical reboots staged in rotating glass boxes, the Australian auteur's calling card. His adaptions of Phaedra and Yerma turn his actors into caged zoo animals prowling around their confines waiting for pent up emotions to burst. It’s rinse and repeat for Stone’s take on The Oresteia at The Bridge. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it?
A queer romance-thriller mash-up sounds an ambitious undertaking, so one must applaud writer Eleanor Tindall and director Emily Aboud for giving it a go. However, this revival at the Bush Theatre in west London doesn't quite come together, despite laudable performances from a young, animated cast.
With Rent set to return to the West End in September, now feels like the right time for The Jonathan Larson Project, a retrospective of what the composer Jonathan Larson did before he wrote the classic East Village-set tale of life and love amid the AIDs crisis.
Tom Wentworth and Stephanie Kempson’s new reimagining of the beloved novel The Secret Garden has inclusivity and accessibility fused into its core from the ground up, and the result is an adaptation that boasts charm by the bucketload.
On the surface, Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love has every element of a good one-woman show: a woman’s journey to gaining new agency, a compelling historical hook, and a exceedingly watchable performer. Given all these ingredients, it is striking how little this show has to say.
All's fair in love and war — at least until the hero storms in on a tank. With Tamsin Greig playing a hilarious cameo, Laurent Pelly's production of Donizetti's comic opera returns to Covent Garden for its fifth outing.
The legendary rock opera by lyricist Tim Rice composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar redefined the Broadway musical and 40 years later it remains a beloved classic. The instantly recognisable tunes and daringly contemporary lyrics made it one of the most popular albums of all-time, selling over seven million copies, as well as creating a truly global smash hit, with sold-out productions in more than 40 countries.
