Local News
Amber Davies receives perfect score during musicals week on Strictly
The reality TV and West End star top the leaderboard with 40 points.
Local messages
Why a play about a fatal punch has gripped younger audiences and will tour schools
James Graham’s play Punch touches on gang culture, restorative justice and masculinity in crisis, and for the playwright the true story was a privilege to tellWhen thousands of schoolchildren came to see James Graham’s play Punch in the West End, the playwright, actors and producers were struck ...
First look at Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate in BBC Dear England series
The actor was previously nominated for an Olivier Award for his role as the former England football manager in the West End production.
Get Weekly Updates
Get the headlines in your inbox every week.
Tom Fletcher to sing with Paddington during Strictly’s musicals week
They will take to the ballroom on Saturday.
‘There was rage and pain and iron in him’: Patrick Marber on the great hits – and fond smokes – he had with Tom Stoppard
The director worked with theatre colossus Tom Stoppard on two smash hits. Here, he remembers their heated rehearsals, the night they stayed up watching Jaws – and the last four cigarettes they smoked togetherTom was my hero from the night I first saw Travesties in 1979. I was 15. The older kids at...
Paddington musical in the West End is practically paw-fect, say theatre critics
Michael Bond’s beloved bear is the star of an eagerly anticipated new show at the Savoy theatre in London. Here is what the critics thoughtPaddington is brought to life with state-of-the-art animatronics: James Hameed is his voice and remote puppeteer, while Arti Shah is under his furry skin on st...
Tom Fletcher hopes for royal visit as Paddington The Musical opens in West End
The McFly star has penned the music and lyrics to the eagerly anticipated stage show, which has its world premiere at the Savoy Theatre on Sunday.
Paddington: The Musical review – they’ve looked after this bear quite splendiferously
Savoy theatre, LondonState-of-the-art animatronics, imaginative staging, fabulous performances and some marvellous songs about marmalade make for an evening that will fill you with joy and melt your heart Here is the Peruvian bear as we have never seen him before – or so we are led to believe from...
Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88
A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriterTom Stoppard: a life in picturesMichael Billington: ‘A brilliant dramatist who always raised the temperature of the room’The playwright Tom Stop...
‘The new Hamilton’? Show with Mary Todd Lincoln as drunken first lady comes to London
The one-act play Oh, Mary! – ‘the stupidest, funniest thing possible’ – to open after blockbuster run in New YorkWhat if, in the final weeks before Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, the first lady could not care less about the American civil war and was instead hell-bent on becoming a cabar...
West End phone thieves burying stolen handsets
The stolen devices are being wrapped in tin foil and stashed in community gardens in central London
All My Sons review – the stars of a dream cast align for Arthur Miller’s towering tragedy
Wyndham’s theatre, LondonBryan Cranston, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Paapa Essiedu and Hayley Squires achieve theatrical alchemy in Ivo van Hove’s superb productionIn 2014 Ivo van Hove’s Young Vic staging of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge drew comparisons to monumental Greek drama. Light...
Back to the Future celebrates 40th with three Marty McFlys performing the musical
The West End show’s former lead actors will travel back in their careers to share the role with its current star for the 1985 film’s anniversaryAudiences at the West End musical Back to the Future will see three actors play Marty McFly in a single evening next month.To mark the 40th anniversary ...
On the way to Wicked: Cynthia Erivo’s stage musicals – in pictures
Long before her big-screen success as Elphaba, the British actor lit up the stage with performances in Sister Act, The Color Purple and other hit shows Continue reading......
Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink to make West End debut in Romeo and Juliet
The actor will appear opposite British film star Noah Jupe in a production directed by Robert Icke opening in MarchStranger Things’ Sadie Sink is to make her West End debut next year in Romeo and Juliet, opposite British film star Noah Jupe, in a production directed by Olivier award-winner Robert ...
The flop that finally flew: why did it take 40 years for Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along to soar?
Its 1981 New York premiere was a disaster but this told-in-reverse musical became a Tony award-winning hit with Daniel Radcliffe. The film version is a tear-jerking joyI have made enough mistakes as a critic to feel mildly chuffed when a verdict is vindicated. In 1981 I wrote excitedly about a new S...
Ivo van Hove’s All My Sons extends the UK’s special relationship with Arthur Miller
In his first hit play, now receiving another starry revival, the celebrated dramatist’s analysis of the American psyche is steeped in European traditionThe British theatre’s long love affair with Arthur Miller continues. This week sees the start of previews for Ivo van Hove’s production of Mil...
‘She spread love and naughtiness’: Simon Callow on directing Pauline Collins in Shirley Valentine
Her natural performance in Willy Russell’s masterpiece seemed effortless but Collins found it hugely challenging – and still made every day a partyPauline Collins was a unique phenomenon: a superb light-comedy actress – as she described herself – who was unerringly able to reach emotional de...
Love The Traitors and Only Murders in the Building? Visit The Mousetrap, says bold new director of West End perennial
Ola Ince, who has refreshed Agatha Christie’s record-breaking mystery, says ‘we all fancy ourselves as detectives’Audiences left hungry for more suspense after the nail-biting Celebrity Traitors finale should visit the ultimate murder mystery, The Mousetrap, its new director has suggested.Ola ...
Why a vibrant, multicultural London scares the right | Letters
Readers respond to an article by Jonathan Liew on rightwing condemnation of the capitalRegarding Jonathan Liew’s article (Say what you like about ‘Sadiq Khan’s no-go hellscape’ – Britain’s cities prove the rightwing agitators wrong, 3 November), my experience of London has been one of we...