Is Sunday in the Park with George, starring Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande, heading to London?

Shehrazade Zafar-Arif 16 December, 2025, 14:34

A major new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Sunday in the Park with George is rumoured to be heading to London soon, starring the stars of the recent Wicked films.

Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande. Photos by Getty Images.

According to a recent article in Deadline by Baz Bamigboye, Jonathan Bailey and Ariana Grande are in "early planning stages" for the production, directed by Marianne Elliott.

The musical is rumoured to be staged at the Barbican Theatre in summer 2027, ahead of the theatre's recent announcement that it would be undergoing a refurbishment in 2028.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning musical with a book by James Lapine and a score by Stephen Sondheim tells the story of French post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat in the months leading up to the completion of his most famous painting, 'A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'. Driven by an obsessive need to complete the painting, Seurat isolates himself from the French bourgeoisie, spurns his fellow artists, and ignores his lover Dot, a string of decisions that will have a resounding impact over the next hundred years.

The 2017 Broadway revival of the musical, which starred Jake Gyllenhall and Annaleigh Ashford, was due to transfer to the West End in 2020, only to be cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic - which means this is the first time London audiences will get to experience this poignant, passionate musical since it last played in the West End in 2006, starring Jenna Russell (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry) as Dot.

This revival will reunite Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton, Richard II), who was recently nominated for Best Performer in a Play in the WhatsOnStage Awards, with pop superstar Ariana Grande after the two starred together in the blockbuster adaptations of Wicked and Wicked: For Good.

Marianne Elliot recently directed Nick Payne's new play The Unbelievers at The Royal Court and is due to direct a major revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre. She will be returning to Sondheim following her West End and Broadway revival of Company, which also starred Jonathan Bailey.

While we're waiting for more news on this possible exciting revival, another Sondheim and Lapine classic, Into the Woods, directed by Jordan Fein, has just opened at the Bridge Theatre to a wave of glowing reviews from critics.