Plays

Matthew Warchus directs Charles Dickens’ timeless classic A Christmas Carol in a joyous new adaptation by Jack Thorne.

On a bitter Christmas Eve night a cold-hearted miser is visited by four ghosts. Transported to worlds past, present and future, Ebenezer Scrooge witnesses what a lifetime of fear and selfishness has led to and sees with fresh eyes the lonely life he has built for himself. Can Ebenezer be saved before it’s too late?

Seen by over 9 million people in more than 250 cities around the world, Walking with Dinosaurs - The Arena Spectacular, is back. Be amazed and thrilled as the greatest creatures ever to walk the earth return before your eyes.

Following record breaking sell out shows, a West End transfer, productions in China, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany and a smash hit film, the original terrifying live production is back.

Jonathan Miller’s classic production returns to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the director’s ENO debut.

The Royal Shakespeare Company returns to the Barbican this autumn with a contemporary London Season comprising three of the playwright’s most loved titles: Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Olivier Award 2016 winners The Showstoppers are back in the West End transforming audience suggestions into all-singing, all-dancing shows with unpredictable and hilarious results.

After a lifetime of reading books on chivalry, one eccentric old man heads off on a rumbustious quest to become a wandering knight accompanied by his faithful and equally ill-suited servant, ‘riotously performed by David Threlfall as Don Quixote and Rufus Hound as Sancho Panza’ (The Times). Taking up a lance and sword, Don Quixote sets out on a hilarious journey across medieval Spain, defending the helpless and vanquishing the wicked. 

Following sell-out seasons in 2012, 2013 and 2016 and critical and audience acclaim, Simon Callow returns in this much-lauded production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, playing at the Arts Theatre for a strictly limited season from 8 December. Intensely dramatic and profoundly heart-warming, A CHRISTMAS CAROL is one of the greatest ghost stories ever written. This is storytelling at its very finest.

Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s The Wipers Times tells the true and extraordinary story of the satirical newspaper created in the mud and mayhem of the Somme. Following a sell-out season at the Arts Theatre The Wipers Times returns for seven weeks only.

In a bombed out building during the First World War in the Belgian town of Ypres (mis-pronounced Wipers by British soldiers), two officers discover a printing press and create a newspaper for the troops. Far from being a sombre journal about life in the trenches, they produced a resolutely cheerful, subversive and very funny newspaper designed to lift the spirits of the men on the front line.

After 45 years’ teaching, you would think that Edward would be looking forward to retirement. And he is – he’s a celebrated educator after all. Except, his house is now under siege and his daughter has returned with a set of suspicious questions. It seems as though Edward isn’t as popular as he originally believed.

We’ve running out of time to progress – change is coming whether we like it or not. Its patience has run out and it’s rushing up on us. But are we ready? No, of course not. Writer and director debbie tucker green brings ear for eye to the Royal Court – she is ready, she’s doing her thing with or without us.

Down on his luck in the suburbs, Sir John Falstaff plans to hustle his way to a comfortable retirement by seducing the wives of two wealthy men. Unknown to him, it’s the women of Windsor who really pull the strings, orchestrating his comeuppance amid a theatrical smorgasbord of petty rivalries, jealousies and over-inflated egos.

The smash-hit, sell-out play by Kevin Elyot and writer of the landmark drama My Night With Reg, transfers to Trafalgar Studios 2 this January.

‘We haven’t been faithful to each other since we met… why have you suddenly decided you’re not in the mood for sharing?’

Based on the hit CBBC children’s television series, Operation Ouch! Is performing for the first time in the UK in December 2018. Don’t miss Dr Chris and Dr Xand up close and personal, live on stage!

Fresh from their sold-out, five-star run at the Edinburgh Fringe, join multi-award-winning duo, Zak Ghazi-Torbati & Toby Marlow (co-writer of SIX), for the cabaret comedy extravaGAYnza that well and truly SLEIGHS.

A tender and bittersweet play about conscience and connection.

It’s the show you’ve all been asking for – and it’s brought to you by the people behind the worldwide smash hit, Faulty Towers The Dining Experience.

This fully immersive show transports audiences to The Nags Head to meet the pride of Peckham in a night of wheeling, dealing and eating. 

Soldier On is inspired by the stories writer/director Jonathan Lewis (writer of multi award-winning Our Boys) workshopped with British servicemen and women and their families over a five year period. The play returns to London following a sold out national tour to commemorate the end of the First World War. 

The result is “as funny as it is heart-breaking” and lifts the lid on the vastness and complexity of Britain’s often overlooked and incredibly broad military community, the wives, partners, mothers, children and, of course, the servicemen and women themselves, and how they cope with the emotional, mental and physical effects and stresses of modern military service and its after effects.

‘For them the clock would never strike midnight, the dance and the music could never stop…’

The American Clock turns, fortunes are made and lives are broken. In New York City in 1929, the stock market crashed and everything changed.

Did you ever see the CBS TV show Twilight Zone? If you were around in the '60s and '70s you'll be familiar with its vintage charm. Some stories were terrifying. Some were pretty silly. But they were all irresistible. That hairy monster on the aeroplane engine... nasty. If you haven't seen them, you're in for a huge treat thanks to this tongue in cheek comedy-horror-scifi masterpiece.

Rory’s Dad was an explorer. Well, not literally. Literally he was a Geography teacher. But inside, she knows, he was Bear Grylls.

And when he dies suddenly in an accident, Rory knows he needs her help to make one last expedition.

1995, the Swiss Alps. Patricia Highsmith, the queen of the thriller, now ageing and ailing, hides away in her study, surrounded by her collection of books and antique weaponry, finding solace in her seclusion, her cats and cigarettes. A polished young man turns up, sent by her New York publisher to persuade the great writer to pen one final instalment of her best-selling series featuring the master manipulator, Tom Ripley. But as day breaks over the mountains, it becomes clear that the charming stranger is set on a far more sinister mission.

A new comedy about life, love and staying on your bike!

When retired miner Don and former private school teacher Carol meet by chance after both suffering a loss, they thought they’d found a new beginning. But a bike ride through Europe would test their budding romance, and the road to love is rocky when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

Join them on their hilarious and heartfelt journey, as they reconcile the past, debate the present and worry about the future. Whether they’re saddle sore in Southampton, blistered in Bordeaux or frazzled in Florence, one thing is for sure – it takes two to tandem!