London theater keeps busy all year round, even during the supposed dog days of January, when other theater capitals are in the doldrums. Try telling that to the creatives who are keeping theaters busy in the coming weeks and months, with new openings, anticipated returns of favorite productions and lots to discover Off West End.
Bringing back the Bard
The Merchant of Venice 1936
This rewrite of Shakespeare’s play, displaced to London’s East End in the 1930s, returns for its third London engagement, with Tracy-Ann Oberman reprising the role of Shylock. In this iteration, Antonio, the merchant of the title, is an Oswald Mosley-style fascist who coerces Shylock to convert to Christianity. Joseph Millson, fresh from starring in “The Forsyte Saga” across town, plays Antonio this time around. Runs through Jan. 25 at the Trafalgar Theater, then touring.
Richard II
Jonathan Bailey may have hit the big time as the smooth-talking Fiyero in the movie adaptation of “Wicked,” but the Olivier Award winner for “Company” hasn’t forgotten his theatrical roots. From February, he will be seen in the title role of “Richard II” at the Bridge Theater, directed by Nicholas Hytner, who also oversaw Bailey (playing Cassio) in a 2013 production of “Othello” at the National Theater. The supporting cast at the Bridge includes such stage veterans as Michael Simkins and Amanda Root. Runs Feb. 10 through May 10 at the Bridge Theater.
Cymbeline
Compared with Shakespeare’s best-known works, this late play is rarely staged, which should ramp up interest in Jennifer Tang’s production for the candlelit, indoor theater at Shakespeare’s Globe. Gabrielle Brooks, recently seen outdoors at the same address in “The Comedy of Errors,” stars as the openhearted Innogen, while Martina Laird plays her father, the British monarch of the title. Be prepared for severed heads and characters who seem to be dead but, in fact, are not. In repertory Jan. 10 through April 20 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
Much Ado About Nothing
It’s been nearly six years since the director Jamie Lloyd directed Tom Hiddleston in a bravura production of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which transferred to Broadway and earned both men Tony nominations. In February, Hiddleston will be back onstage for the first time since then, reuniting with Lloyd in Shakespeare’s most deeply felt comedy. Hiddleston plays the marriage-averse Benedick, opposite Hayley Atwell’s Beatrice. Running at a capacious theater usually that usually hosts musicals, the production follows Lloyd’s reappraisal of “The Tempest,” starring Sigourney Weaver. Runs Feb. 10 through April 5 at Theater Royal, Drury Lane.
Macbeth
Richard Twyman’s English Touring Theater, which can be relied upon for provocative productions of the classics, is reprising its 2023 take on Shakespeare’s shortest, most compressed tragedy, this time with Alex Austin in the title role and Lois Chimimba as his scheming wife. This production emphasizes the supernatural, foregrounding the witches. And it’s weird in other ways, too. You may have seen “Macbeth” countless times, but probably never with a character singing the 1970s disco hit, “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie.” Runs Feb. 28 through March 29 at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Screen stars in classic plays
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Tennessee Williams’s celebrated play about alcoholism and mendacity gets a fresh airing from the director Rebecca Frecknall, after her previous much-laureled productions, also for the Almeida, of Williams’s “Summer and Smoke” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.” (That latter show returns to London for a brief run in February before a New York transfer.) Daisy Edgar-Jones, from the TV adaptation of “Normal People,” stars as the sexually rapacious Maggie, opposite Kingsley Ben-Adir as her crutch-wielding husband, Brick, and the brilliant Lennie James in fierce form as the booming-voiced Big Daddy. Runs through Feb. 1 at the Almeida Theater.
Oedipus
Robert Icke’s blistering update of Sophocles’ tragedy closes at Wyndham’s Theater on Jan. 4, and is quickly followed by another “Oedipus”: a production adapted by Ella Hickson and co-directed by Matthew Warchus and the choreographer Hofesh Shechter. The Oscar winner Rami Malek makes his London debut in the title role, alongside the Olivier winner Indira Varma as Jocasta and Cecilia Noble as the blind, yet all-knowing, Tiresias. Shechter is on hand as composer as well as choreographer, and the cast includes numerous members of his dance troupe. Runs Jan. 21 through March 29 at the Old Vic.
Elektra
Think of it as a Sophoclean standoff. Fast on the heels of an Oscar winner taking on a Greek classic comes another trophy-bearer in a different play from the same writer. Brie Larson has been tapped to play the vengeful Elektra in Daniel Fish’s revival of a less often-seen Sophocles text, and the mighty supporting cast includes the Broadway legend Stockard Channing as Clytemnestra and, playing Orestes, the expatriate American actor Patrick Vaill who made his name in Fish’s London and Broadway revival of “Oklahoma!” Runs Jan. 24 through April 12 at the Duke of York’s Theater.
The Seagull
The season’s starriest show is Chekhov’s rending play about art, love and loss in a new version from Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier, with Ostermeier directing. Cate Blanchett plays the preening Arkadina, with the Oscar nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee making his professional stage debut as her anguished son, Konstantin, and the fast-rising Emma Corrin as the no less anguished Nina. Runs Feb. 26 through April 5 at the Barbican.
The Little Foxes
The busy Anne-Marie Duff may be renowned for such large and small screen ventures as “The Salisbury Poisonings,” “Suffragette” and “Shameless,” but she is rarely away from the theater for long. Her current assignment as Regina Giddens in the director Lyndsey Turner’s revival of “The Little Foxes” puts a 1939 American classic back in the public eye. Duff is joined in this ever-gripping story of greed and avarice by Anna Madeley as the woebegone Birdie and Mark Bonnar and Steffan Rhodri, both in bruising form as Regina’s beastly brothers. Runs through Feb. 8 at the Young Vic.
Musicals
Oliver!
“Please sir, I want some more.” The young Oliver Twist’s request gets answered afresh in the popular English musical, seen last summer at the Chichester Festival Theater, south of London, before its West End transfer. The show’s star attraction has always been that expert pickpocket Fagin, a role handed this time to Simon Lipkin, who was previously an indispensable presence in “Avenue Q” and Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins.” Belting out “As Long as He Needs Me” is Shanay Holmes as the long-suffering Nancy. Runs at the Gielgud Theater.
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
A tiny sliver of “War and Peace” provides the basis for Dave Malloy’s ceaselessly inventive musical, which got 12 Tony nominations in 2017 and has now crossed the Atlantic in a rousing new staging by the director Tim Sheader. The intimacy of the 251-seat Donmar Warehouse should deliver this bustling, busy show straight into playgoer’s laps. Declan Bennett inherits Josh Groban’s Broadway role as Pierre, alongside a name-heavy supporting cast, among whom Jamie Muscato and Maimuna Memon are standouts. Runs through Feb. 8 at the Donmar Warehouse.
The Producers
Mel Brooks’s stage musical version of his own movie stormed Broadway in 2001 and then brought its leading man, Nathan Lane, to London in 2004. So the bar has been set high for the director Patrick Marber’s joyful revival, with Andy Nyman — seen onscreen as Elphaba’s incredulous father in “Wicked” — inheriting Lane’s role as Max Bialystock. One thing that bodes well for this production: It is opening at the same theater that birthed revivals of “Merrily We Roll Along” and “The Color Purple,” both of which transferred to Broadway. Will lightning strike again? Runs through March 1 at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
Cabaret
There have been numerous cast changes since Rebecca Frecknall’s production of “Cabaret” first opened late in 2021 with Eddie Redmayne heading the cast. But all eyes will be on the new American leads who join the Kit Kat Club — the show’s Weimar-era Berlin setting — toward the end of January. Playing the shape-shifting, sinuously creepy Emcee will be the Tony winner Billy Porter (“Kinky Boots,” “Pose”), opposite Marisha Wallace as Sally Bowles. Runs at the Kit Kat Club; Porter and Wallace appear Jan. 28 through May 24.
Titanique
This musical parody of James Cameron’s film found a laugh-hungry following Off Broadway and has now set sail on the West End, with a strong cast headed by Jordan Luke Gage, late of the long-running “& Juliet,” and Lauren Drew, who spent a recent summer playing Brooke in an alfresco London staging of “Legally Blonde.” Layton Williams gets perhaps the best credit of all: the Iceberg. Runs at the Criterion Theater.
Returning favorites
Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake: The Next Generation
It’s 30 years since Matthew Bourne’s retelling of “Swan Lake” — by turns feral, moving and sexy — shook up the dance world, transferring to Broadway in 1998. Here it is again, this time with a “Star Trek”-worthy addition to the title — “The Next Generation” — but its vision of a bare-chested, all-male corps de ballet of swans remains. This also marks the 22nd year that a Bourne production has taken the holiday season slot at London’s leading dance venue. Runs through Jan. 26 at Sadler’s Wells Theater.
The Years
Last summer, more squeamish audience members were fainting left, right and center at this adaptation of the French writer Annie Ernaux’s quasi-memoir. And though the Norwegian director Eline Arbo’s all-female production was harrowing, it was also playful, witty and beautifully acted by the same tightly knit cast that will take the show to the West End. Be advised that the superlative Romola Garai leaves the company March 8, but her stalwart colleagues Deborah Findlay and Gina McKee remain for the entire run. Runs Jan. 24 through April 19 at the Harold Pinter Theater.
Dear England
Fear not, sports-phobic readers. You don’t need to know a thing about soccer to enjoy James Graham’s play, which won best play at the 2024 Olivier Awards and is returning for a 10-week run. Chronicling the travails of an English team that has experienced more than its share of loss, the play and Rupert Goold’s energetic production, have something of the larky spirit of the TV show “Ted Lasso.” Gwilym Lee, seen onscreen in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” inherits Joseph Fiennes’s role as the team manager Gareth Southgate. Runs March 10 through May 24 at the National Theater.
New writing (for timeless plays)
Alterations
The Guyana-born British writer Michael Abbensetts died in 2016, and his work has received little attention since. So all credit to the National Theater for mounting a revival of this 1978 play, set across 24 hours in a London tailor’s shop and with the dynamic Arinzé Kene in the starring role. The director is Lynette Linton, whose 2022 debut at the National restored Pearl Cleage’s “Blues for an Alabama Sky” to its rightful place in the canon. Let’s see if this version, featuring additional material from the contemporary author and actress Trish Cooke, can do the same for “Alterations.” Runs Feb. 20 through April 5 at the National Theater.
Three Sisters
Chekhov is a playwright’s playwright, so it’s no surprise to find Rory Mullarkey — an established dramatist in his own right — offering up a new translation of the Russian master’s “Three Sisters,” running in repertory with “Cymbeline” at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. And while “The Seagull” will be fielding buzzy names across town at the same time, this Chekhov showing stars a real-life husband and wife in theater veterans Paul Ready and Michelle Terry. In repertory Jan. 31 through April 19 at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
New writing (altogether)
Kyoto
The Royal Shakespeare Company has a new artistic director team in Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, who have already premiered several notable productions. Among their transfers to London from Stratford-upon-Avon is Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s cautionary play about the 1997 climate summit in Kyoto, Japan, presented in association with Good Chance, the company behind the recent, hugely moving “The Jungle.” Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin co-directed that play, and have reunited for this one. Runs Jan. 9 through May 3 at @sohoplace.
The Lonely Londoners
I loved Roy Williams’s adaptation of the Trinidadian writer Sam Selvon’s 1956 novel when I caught it at the 70-seat Jermyn Street Theater last March, so it’s heartening to find this story of the Windrush generation of immigrants to Britain receiving an upgrade to a far larger venue. I doubt this iteration — an affecting production from Ebenezer Bamgboye — will be the play’s last. Runs Jan. 10 through Feb. 22 at the Kiln Theater.
Churchill in Moscow
The small but mighty Orange Tree Theater in West London has been punching above its weight. That looks set to continue with a new play from the veteran dramatist Howard Brenton set in 1942 and telling of a clandestine meeting at the Kremlin between Churchill and Stalin. Roger Allam plays the British prime minister, alongside Peter Forbes as the Soviet dictator. Runs Feb. 3 through March 8 at the Orange Tree Theater.
Lavender, Hyacinth, Violet, Yew
Garden enthusiasts look set for a treat at Coral Wylie’s alluringly titled play, which tells of a 19-year-old’s self-discovery through, yes, the world and plants. Debbie Hannan directs the 2022 Olivier nominee Omari Douglas in this latest offering from the same west London theater that brought us “Shifters,” “Elephant” and “Baby Reindeer.” Runs Feb. 8 through March 22 at the Bush Theater.
Backstroke
The director Anna Mackmin turns playwright with this intergenerational, female-focused drama about women at different life stages. Celia Imrie plays a feisty mother debilitated by the effects of a stroke, with the ever-welcome Tamsin Greig as her daughter, who is facing difficulties with a child of her own. Runs Feb. 14 through April 12 at the Donmar Warehouse.
Punch
This play by James Graham received rave reviews last May in its premiere at Nottingham Playhouse, in central England, and will now face a London audience. Adam Penford directs Graham’s adaptation of the 2022 memoir “Right from Wrong,” in which Jacob Dunne reflects on the single punch that led to his imprisonment for manslaughter at age 19. David Shields, whose TV credits include “Masters of the Air” and “Black Mirror,” plays Dunn in a production promising some impact of its own. Runs March 1 through April 12 at the Young Vic.
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