West End Show Reviews & Critics' Ratings

The world premiere production of Sea Witch, is now officially open at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. See what the critics are saying in BroadwayWorld's Review Roundup.

Reviews are in for Cynthia Erivo's starring solo turn in in DRACULA, now playing London's West End. Did critics have a bloody good time with Cynthia? Find out in our review roundup.

The West End production of William Nicholson’s Shadowlands, directed by Rachel Kavanaugh, is now playing at London’s Aldwych Theatre. See what the critics are saying about the production in BroadwayWorld's Review Roundup.

UK premiere of Here There Are Blueberries, a co-production between Tectonic Theater Project and Stratford East is now running at Stratford East. See what the critics are saying in BroadwayWorld's Review Roundup.

Harold Fry was never meant to be a hero. An ordinary man in an ordinary life until a letter from a long-lost friend sends him out the front door… and he keeps on walking. From Devon’s quiet lanes to the windswept streets of Berwick-upon-Tweed, his journey becomes a pilgrimage of love, redemption, and second chances. Strangers turn into companions, kindness appears in unexpected places, and the road reveals more than Harold ever imagined. Back home, his wife Maureen begins her own journey, one that might bring them together again.

Orange Tree Theatre is presenting Richard Eyre’s new adaptation of August Strindberg’s Dance of Death. See what the critics are saying about the production in BroadwayWorld's review roundup!

A revival marking twenty years of a remarkable education initiative, Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank: Romeo and Juliet at the Shakespeare’s Globe demonstrates accessible theatre at its very best. Directed by Lucy Cuthbertson, this fast paced ninety minute production captures the essence of Shakespeare’s tragedy while presenting it in a form that resonates powerfully with young audiences. It is modern, clear and inclusive, without losing sight of the emotional core of the play.

Her name may not be widely known today, but Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s musical legacy is felt down the decades. George Brant’s play about her relationship with gospel singer Marie Knight is retelling not just a woman’s life, but the birth of an entire new genre.

Mary, Queen of Scots, is a remarkable piece of work, offering pointed comment on the place of women in the sixteenth-century court and on the mythology that casts Mary as a martyr. With striking visuals and compositions, it is an original and modern take on a familiar part of history.

Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play, Our Town, marks the first production for Michael Sheen’s Welsh National Theatre. After selling out across Welsh venues, this understated gem of a play moves west to give audiences of the Rose Theatre a chance to see what this exciting new company can do.

Arthur Miller's later works are usually overshadowed by his earlier masterpieces. Is it time for reappraisal? With rising antisemitism across the world, what can Miller’s 1994 confrontation of anti-Jewish racism tell us in 2025?

Somewhere between 20,000 and 300,000 women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula, were trafficked into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during the Second World War: the so-called ‘comfort women’. Writer-performer Minjeong Kim’s one-woman show tells just one of their stories.

The filter-like haze hits you first. Then the occasional lighting, the tiled ceiling, and the faint whiff of the 80s. But it's the arrival of two extraordinary performances – Madelyn Smedley's fizzing, fearless Rita and Julius D'Silva's weary, cynical Frank – that makes Reading Rep Theatre's Educating Rita something truly special. And it's also really fun. 

Staged at the cavernous Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Sea Witch arrived with the sort of fanfare usually reserved for tried-and-tested crowd-pleasers. Instead, this world premiere exposed the perils of unveiling an unpolished new musical on one of the West End’s most imposing stages.

Sci-fi, like most things, is an acquired taste, and not something you often find related to dance. Enter The Coronet Theatre for once again pushing the boundaries of avant-garde programming. Last And First Men (2024) by Neon Dance is a multimedia work that definitely gets the brain working in pre-performance research and post-show afterthought. The live experience itself is a slightly confusing one in relation to content, intention and cohesion.

What did our critic think of LA BOHEME IN CINEMAS at Cinemas Across The UK?

It appears Tosca Rivola is back for a sequel of sorts. After last year’s debacle that was Diamonds and Dust - a production she co-created with Dita Von Teese that promised the moon, delivered a pebble, was 'paused' shortly after its press night and then, two months later, quietly cancelled - the American cabaret producer has returned to Aaron Mellor’s Emerald Theatre with her long running concept show Sinematic. 

“We’ve died, we’ve been reborn, but we still have our memories,” a character reflects at one point. He’s talking about the years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and this sense of war as existential is everywhere in Ukrainian playwright Polina Polozhentseva’s understated fable.

The 2026 edition of the London Handel Festival, which kicked off last week, is running under the theme of From Heavenly Harmony. The five-week event aims to “enrich lives through Handel’s music”, with concerts and recitals taking place in a variety of venues across London - last night saw The English Concert tackle five pieces from Handel and JS Bach, all in the realms of ‘splendour’ and ‘devotion’.

The sudden passing of her father kick-starts a profound identity crisis in Lenore. Why didn’t her life dramatically change when he died? She remembers witnessing what the loss of a parent did to a schoolmate when she was younger, that instant transformation into a shell of who she was beforehand. She’s angry that she doesn’t feel any differently about him than she did when he was alive. Music and movement accompany the poetic exegesis of Yanina Hope’s relationship with her parents. It could be a delicate investigation of the aftermath of death; it’s well written and creative, but there isn’t much narrative pull to it. Autobiographical theatre always runs the risk of being too self-indulgent to see its shortcomings.

If you have ever suspected that opera might benefit from fewer Valkyries and more vaudeville, Opera Locos is here to confirm your prejudice and then sing it at you in Italian.

“What a thing to have a mother!” That’s how Anna Ziegler’s new play ends. Studies show that it takes two to five years for a blended family to become a cohesive unit, and when Jennifer marries John, his daughter Delilah refuses to cooperate. Jennifer badly wants to be in Delilah’s life. In her fifties, she’s never been married nor had any romantic liaisons before, but the young woman struggles to reconcile her devotion to her late mother with the recent addition to her world. Ziegler introduces two women who struggle with change. They’re extremely different, but, unsurprisingly, very much the same. 

Adapted by Olivier Award-winner Laura Wade from Somerset Maugham’s original play, The Constant Wife, this new version is directed by Co-Artistic Director of the RSC Tamara Harvey and is now embarking on a UK Tour which, delightfully, opened in Brighton this week. It may not have played to a full house, but this superb adaptation certainly brought the house down.

George Eliot’s Middlemarch was, and is, radical for its acknowledgement of how society places limits on even the most ambitious and idealistic of its inhabitants. In his new play, Alexi Kaye Campbell explores how that notion of compromise may have affected Eliot herself, both to her own benefit and to her detriment.

To Maury With Love at Theatre Royal Drury Lane celebrated composer Maury Yeston’s 80th birthday with songs from Titanic, Nine, and Grand Hotel. Featuring the London Musical Theatre Orchestra, the charity concert supported Bowel Cancer UK, delivering strong performances despite limited context and minor technical issues overall.

f we’re speaking technically, a dramatised lecture is an educational performance that joins drama and academia in order to make the topic more entertaining to the public. In this case, Conradi offers an engaging one-man show that makes the bulky five acts of Peer Gynt accessible and smooth. He lightly ties the original piece to the universal experience of living in a modern world, but doesn’t overdo any of the self-referencing faux pas that could have been made. It’s a self-effacing vanity project of exquisite moral and artistic value.