Rupert Goold sets out his first Old Vic season, Matt Smith signs up to play an alien in the West End and Hamlet Hail to the Thief collects nothing below four stars at the Barbican. This is the week in London theatre.
Rupert Goold's first season at the Old Vic was the announcement of the week. It was not the only one: Hampstead, the Yard, English Touring Theatre and Jermyn Street all showed their hands for 2027, and the Christmas rehearsal rooms kept opening their doors. These are the stories Best of Theatre News covered between Friday 6 November and Friday 13 November.
Announcements and on sale
Damian Lewis plays Henry V from 26 January 2027 in Goold's opening season at the Old Vic. Goold also directs Sondheim's Assassins, Milly Alcock takes the title role in Rebecca Frecknall's Julie, and Arinzé Kene stars in Kohlhaas. Read the season.
Matt Smith returns to the West End next autumn as the alien at the centre of The Humans, Jack Thorne's play from the Matt Haig novel. Previews at the Theatre Royal Haymarket begin on Saturday 30 October 2027, and 15,000 seats across the run are priced at £25. Read the casting news.
Monét X Change makes a West End debut as Miss Tracy Mills in The Legend of Georgia McBride, in the round at @sohoplace from 2 February to 15 May 2027 (read more). Carrie Hope Fletcher leads the folk musical Ballad Lines for 12 weeks at The Other Palace from April (read more).
Hampstead Theatre has a five-play season for February to July 2027: four world premieres and Jeremy Sams's revival of Michael Frayn's Democracy. Public booking opens on Thursday 19 November. Read the season.
The Yard Theatre is doing its first musical. Jay Miller directs Sondheim and Furth's Company in Hackney Wick from 27 May to 10 July 2027, with general sale from noon on 19 November (read more). It is part of English Touring Theatre's 2027/28 season, which ends at the Royal Court Theatre in 2028 with Jessie Buckley in Afterbirth (read the season).
Jermyn Street Theatre goes in the round for Atri Banerjee's UK premiere of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Everybody, from 28 January 2027 (read more). Joy: A New Musical, about the inventor of the Miracle Mop, has its UK premiere at Southwark Playhouse Elephant from 20 February to 10 April (read more).
On the fringe in 2027: Birdcatcher, Let the Whale Die and The Gentleman of Wimbledon head to Park90 at Park Theatre between March and July (read more); the King's Head Theatre premieres Saving Alan Turing and Tom Ratcliffe's Fault (read more); and Little Angel Theatre opens Baboo the Unusual Bee on 6 February, a week after Let's Fly returns (read more). Sooner than that, the rap musical Raw Gods plays one night at Hoxton Hall on 2 December (read more), and Wood for the Graves, drawn from an unfinished Lorca play, has three performances at the Calder Bookshop & Theatre on 4-5 December (read more).
London Box Office's Black Friday sale opened this morning with more than 45 shows, prices from £10 and up to 60% off. See what is in it. Separately, Christmas Carol Goes Wrong has released more front-row seats for its Wyndham's Theatre season, 18 December to 23 January (read more).
Casting
Matthew Beard, Louisa Harland and Jonathan Slinger are among the eleven performers in Three and a Bit, the new Caryl Churchill plays at the Almeida Theatre this winter. Read the casting news.
At the Yard, Olisa Odele and Jordan Kouamé lead Troy Hunter's first play, There's Something About Adam Black, from 13 January to 20 February 2027 (read more). At the King's Head, Geri Allen plays the Queen in person for the first time, rather than on screen, in Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story, back for its fifth birthday from 19-31 January (read more).
The Lyric Hammersmith has named the six actors for the fifteenth year of Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas, in the Lyric Studio from 18 November (read more). Oliver Sidney and Katherine Strohmaier reunite for Side by Side by Sondheim at Upstairs at the Gatehouse from 10 December (read more).
Around the UK: Lauren Conroy and Matthew Anthony Ralph lead ETT's Romeo and Juliet, opening in Edinburgh on 30 January (read more); Amer Hlehel plays the title role in Pericles, Prince of Lebanon at Bristol Old Vic in February (read more); Nigel Barrett has replaced Linus Roache opposite Michael Sheen in Owain & Henry at Wales Millennium Centre (read more); Jason Manford and Ben Nickless are back for Dick Whittington at the Opera House Manchester (read more); and Jennifer Zia is Ella in Nottingham Playhouse's Cinderella for younger audiences (read more).
Reviews
Hamlet Hail to the Thief averages 4.3 out of 5 from seven rated reviews at the Barbican Theatre, with nothing below four stars so far and Samuel Blenkin's Prince the most praised element. Read the roundup.
The National Theatre's Cloud 9 averages 4.0 from 18 at the Lyttelton, where Sam Troughton as the five-year-old Cathy is the name the critics keep coming back to (read the roundup). The Royal Ballet's Visionaries: Robbins and MacMillan does even better, at 4.2 from seven (read the roundup).
Opinion splits further down. Dogstar at Hampstead averages 3.2 from 17 (read the roundup), and Nero at Southwark Playhouse Elephant only 2.2 from 17, though Andrew Barth Feldman comes out of it well (read the roundup). ENO's Iphigénie en Tauride sits at 3.7 from 15 (read the roundup).
Also reviewed: Act of God at Riverside Studios, 3.6; The Other Side of Murder at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, 4.0; and, at Sadler's Wells, The Last Hamlet 3.9, Tango After Dark 3.6 and Five Days in the Sun 3.4.
First looks
The Yard let photographers into the rehearsal room for Lear, with Ian McKellen and Taylor Russell, ahead of the first performance on 17 November (see the photos). New production pictures are out for Hamlet Hail to the Thief, Cloud 9, Tamsin Greig in Cranford at the Orange Tree and Iphigénie en Tauride.
Christmas is in rehearsal too: Ria Jones, Neil Morrissey and Sally Ann Triplett in Fourteen Again at the Menier Chocolate Factory (see the photos); Bo Poraj and Marc Antolin in Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Days of Christmas (see the photos); Ashley Joseph in Stratford East's Robin Hood and the Merry Mandem (see the photos); and Louisa Lytton and James Alexandrou in Casserole at Playhouse East (see the photos).
Outside London: all four Billys in the Billy Elliot the Musical tour, ahead of its West End return in February (see the photos); Singin' in the Rain in rehearsal at the Crucible (see the photos); Harriet Walter as Brutus in the RSC's all-female Julius Caesar (see the photos); Elliot Cowan in Donald at Theatre Royal Bath (see the photos); and Bristol Old Vic's Cinderella: A Fairytale (see the photos).
On tour and around the UK
The RSC's Hamnet sets out on its first UK tour at the Lowry in Salford on 25 September 2027, with 13 venues announced, New Wimbledon Theatre among them (read more). Matt Henry leads the new musical To Sir, With Love, opening in Leeds on 15 April 2027 (read more), and Operation Mincemeat has added more 2027 tour weeks (read more).
In Scotland, Elaine C. Smith brings Cathy to the Citizens Theatre from 11-27 March 2027 (read more), the Citizens adds Lifegame and Same Team to its spring (read more), and the National Theatre of Scotland's 2027 programme sends The Young Team to Hammersmith (read more). Also announced: the Emma Rice Company's return of Romantics Anonymous and a 2027 route for Tristan & Yseult (read more), Hull Truck's 2027 season, led by Martha Godber's Spiders (read more), the Birdcatcher tour's new stops (read more) and New Perspectives' Let the Whale Die (read more).
And a theatre comes back. The Orchard Theatre in Dartford, shut since 2023, reopens on Saturday 12 December with Joe Pasquale in Cinderella, and more than 50,000 tickets have already gone. Read more.
Across the Atlantic
Arti Shah and James Hameed, who shared an Olivier for bringing the bear to life, take Paddington The Musical to Broadway next spring alongside Jessie Mueller and Tony Hale (read more). The National Theatre's Inter Alia, with Rosamund Pike, moved its first Broadway preview back a day to 11 November (read more), and Mare Winningham and Madeline Brewer head John Tiffany's Wild Rose in New York (read more).
Chicago reaches 30 years on Broadway on Saturday 14 November, with a one-night gala at the Ambassador Theatre on 16 November. Read about the anniversary on News From Broadway. Here, the UK tour opens at New Wimbledon Theatre on 5 February 2027.
Features, awards and industry
The real story behind The Lives of Others goes back to the Stasi and its archive. Our guides this week cover the Palladium's Cinderella, Potted Panto at the Apollo, The Choir of Man at The Arts at Marble Arch, Mother Russia at Hampstead and The Animals Come to the Table at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane are on the ten-play shortlist for the Globe's first Climate Playwriting Prize, decided on 27 November (read more). Roberta Wilkinson has won the 2026 Polka Playwriting Award with Doors (read more), and Denise Silvey steps down as artistic director of The Mousetrap at the end of the year, after 32 years with the play (read more).
This weekend and next week
Last chances: Kimberly Akimbo, TRU, Franz & Marie and Iphigénie en Tauride all close on Saturday 14 November, and An Oak Tree and Sylvia on Sunday 15 November. The following Saturday, 21 November, is the last day for Girls at the Young Vic, Roleplay at Soho Theatre, Some Woman at the National and Carmen at the Royal Opera House.
Starting: Cinderella at the Lyric Hammersmith and Club NVRLND at The Vaults on Saturday 14 November; Lear at the Yard on Tuesday 17 November; BalletBoyz' Six Lethargies at Sadler's Wells from Wednesday 18 November; Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen at The Other Palace and Hyde Park Winter Wonderland on Thursday 19 November; and on Saturday 21 November, Fourteen Again, Jack and the Beanstalk at the Hackney Empire and The Snowman at the Peacock Theatre.
Booking further ahead? Our guides keep track of the West End shows closing soon and the ones opening soon.
