The year brought an abundance of delight to London stages whether classic plays or cutting-edge productions. And, of course, the arrival of the newly beloved “Paddington: The Musical.”
As we head into a new year, we took a moment to reflect on some highlights from 2025. Houman Barekat and Matt Wolf, two London-based theater critics for The New York Times, spoke with Tess Felder, an editor on the Culture desk who also lives in the city.
TESS FELDER Let’s start with the highs. What were your top three favorite productions on London stages this year?
HOUMAN BAREKAT I loved Ivo van Hove’s take on Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons,” and “The Deep Blue Sea” with Tamsin Greig. Terence Rattigan’s work has fallen out of fashion, but this very fine revival reminds us why he once mattered so much. The National Theater’s “Playboy of the Western World” — which premiered this month and stars Éanna Hardwicke and Declan Conlon — is a delight: a hilarious grim farce.
All three were relatively traditional stagings — no frills or gimmicks, just a strong cast of actors at the absolute top of their game.
MATT WOLF I’m glad to see “Playboy” being recognized for more than just its troublesome accents — to some people, anyway. It’s a major play.
My own choices start with a contemporary Irish play, Conor McPherson’s “The Weir,” featuring the West End debut, at age 70, of the wonderful Brendan Gleeson, directed by the author as part of an ensemble that is a playgoer’s dreams. At opposite ends of the spectrum were two other highlights: the American writer Brian Watkins’ dazzling solo play “Weather Girl,” featuring Julia McDermott in a breakout performance, and Jamie Lloyd’s in-your-face revival of “Evita,” starring Rachel Zegler, which made me rethink that particular Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice title from 40-plus years ago.
FELDER Strong showings for the Irish and the Americans — they will no doubt be happy with that. I am also a fan of Nicola Coughlan and Siobhán McSweeney, who are both in “Playboy of the Western World.” What surprised you most in London, or broader British, theater in 2025?
WOLF Following on from “Weather Girl,” I was really surprised, and impressed, by the wealth of great one-person shows this year. Those include, just for starters, “Kenrex,” now at the Other Palace, in which the actor and co-author Jack Holden takes us on a dizzying deep dive into a true crime saga that rocked small-town Missouri in 1981. I’d also mention “The Horse of Jenin,” returning in January to West London’s invaluable Bush Theater, the Palestinian writer-performer Alaa Shehada’s moving and funny account of coming of age in a war zone.
BAREKAT I was struck by a couple of plays that incorporated live guitar music in intriguing ways. “Hamlet Hail to The Thief” at the Aviva Studios in Manchester was an ambitious collaboration with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. “Stereophonic,” which has enjoyed a long West End run, was incredibly brave in the way it set out to evoke the tedium of being cooped up in a studio — something that could have gone horribly wrong onstage. But the dialogue is consistently taut and absorbing. In “Hamlet,” the action was sometimes a little rushed to make space for the music, but in “Stereophonic” the pacing was willfully languid, and it paid off.
FELDER What was one standout performance that will stay in your mind or heart for years to come?
BAREKAT Simon Russell Beale’s magisterial performance as the poet A.E. Housman in Tom Stoppard’s “The Invention of Love” at Hampstead Theater will live long in the memory. Incidentally, I saw the playwright at close quarters that day — I had turned up at the theater early for a matinee and was loitering in the cafe. He was chatting with some friends at an adjacent table, and I couldn’t help but eavesdrop. He was so dry and witty.
WOLF Yes, and wasn’t it moving this month to see A.E. Housman getting a shout-out in the Hampstead’s latest Stoppard revival? It’s a rare sighting of his 1995 play “Indian Ink,” running through Jan. 31 and beautifully performed by the playwright’s longtime leading lady, Felicity Kendal, who also starred in the play 30 years ago, but in a different role.
BAREKAT I’d also like to give an honorable mention to Finbar Lynch, whose portrayal of the enigmatic Mr. Miller in “The Deep Blue Sea” was both wonderfully droll and deeply moving.
WOLF Returning to “Evita,” I know that most of the buzz was centered around its leading lady singing the show’s best-known number from the theater balcony. But I was especially poleaxed in that show by the young American Diego Andres Rodriguez as the narrator Che, who begins as a lithe, limber, agile presence and ends the performance husky-voiced and broken — a figure of resistance all but defeated by the politics around him.
FELDER That social-media-buzzing balcony scene did feel like a moment for the present times. What were some trends that you noticed onstage this year that you hope will either continue or fall by the wayside?
WOLF Event theater is definitely a thing, whether it’s the reveal of Paddington at the start of that entirely delicious musical at the Savoy — the bear’s multiple performers should get a special Olivier — or the damp squib that is another well-known title, “The Hunger Games,” brought to the stage in a purpose-built theater for no greater reason, it would seem, than to extend the brand.
In a greener frame of mind, I feel like theaters are turning into garden centers. A shortlist of shows featuring shrubs, plants and even forests would include two Donmar Warehouse productions, “Juniper Blood” and “The Maids”; the Hampstead’s “Indian Ink”; and, across town at the Bridge, Jordan Fein’s revival of “Into the Woods,” featuring a design by Tom Scutt that takes that 1987 musical’s title at its word.
BAREKAT Yes! I would add “The Seagull” at the Barbican, which was very foliage-heavy.
FELDER I couldn’t help thinking of “Field of Dreams” there.
BAREKAT That’s a great shout! I’ve uttered the line “If you build it they will come” on average four times a week, in all manner of contexts, since the ’90s. Another thing I noticed, on the costumes front, is that dressing characters in hoodies to signal edginess seems to be on the wane, which is a good thing. It always reminds me of the “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme.
WOLF Don’t speak too fast. We have a new “Romeo and Juliet” coming up, directed by Robert Icke, that would seem to have real hoodie potential.
FELDER Watch this space, right? And while we’re talking about shows you’ve enjoyed, were there any others that you regret missing out on?
WOLF I’d love to have seen Emily Burns’s amazing-sounding “Measure for Measure” for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, which sounded both highly topical and theatrically rich.
BAREKAT I haven’t managed to catch “Paddington,” which I’m hoping to check out, not least because I’ve just been to see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “The BFG” and the Globe’s “Pinocchio,” which got me thinking about what a huge difference it makes when the lead character puppet is rendered in a particularly charming and adorable way. My social media feed is awash with people — many of whom are not regular theatergoers — fawning over the bear. And understandably so — it looks so cute, I want to adopt it.
WOLF You should definitely catch “Paddington.” Not only does it feature a genuinely terrific new original score from Tom Fletcher — arguably the best for any British musical since “Matilda” 15 years ago — but its message of tolerance and kindness is delivered sweetly and gracefully.
FELDER Well, that’s one for Houman’s list in 2026. What other productions are you most excited to see in the coming year?
BAREKAT I’m looking forward to the new production of “Arcadia” at the Old Vic in February, which takes an added poignancy in light of Stoppard’s death last month. And Tilda Swinton will be returning to the Royal Court Theater after 30 years to reprise the role of Ella in Manfred Karge’s “Man to Man,” which is very much on my radar.
WOLF You can never see “Arcadia” too many times, in my view. I’m excited to see the film name Josh O’Connor back onstage at the Almeida in the Clifford Odets play “Golden Boy,” and it’s heartening to see Simon Russell Beale announced as part of Alan Cumming’s debut season running the Pitlochry Theater Festival in Scotland, playing Liberace, no less, in a new Martin Sherman play directed by Cumming. After having to pull out of “Titus Andronicus” at the Hampstead this past fall, Russell Beale will be back where he belongs — onstage.
FELDER Sounds like we’ve got a lot to look forward to. Happy theatergoing in 2026!
Tess Felder is a London-based editor in the Culture department of The Times.
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