The Olivier-winning revival opens on Tuesday 22 September and books to 9 January 2027, with tickets from £15. Here is what to expect from Into the Woods if you are deciding whether to go now.
Into the Woods opens at the Noel Coward Theatre on Tuesday 22 September 2026 and books until Saturday 9 January 2027. Tickets start at £15. This is a transfer rather than a new staging, which means the production is a known quantity, and most of what a buyer wants to know can be answered before the first London performance.
What is Into the Woods actually like?
Four fairy tales cross in the woods, and every wish granted turns out to have a price. A childless Baker and his Wife learn that the Witch next door has cursed their family line, and that the curse lifts only if they bring her four items before midnight in three days. On the way they meet Cinderella leaving the ball, Jack trading his cow for a handful of beans, Little Red Riding Hood on the path to her grandmother’s, and Rapunzel in her tower. Everyone gets what they wished for by the end of the first act. The second act is about what happens next, and it is a good deal darker than the first.
The look is austere rather than storybook. Tom Scutt’s design keeps the stage black and the costumes pale, so the company arrive out of the dark in ones and twos. The trailer is the quickest way to judge whether that appeals. It gives very little of the plot away and lets the score do most of the talking.
If the player will not load, the film is also on YouTube, and we went through it shot by shot in our piece on the new trailer. The score is Stephen Sondheim at his most performed, and includes Children Will Listen, No One Is Alone, Giants in the Sky and the duet Agony.
Who is on stage?
Kate Fleetwood reprises the Witch, the role that brought her an Olivier Award nomination. Her earlier work includes a Tony-nominated Lady Macbeth. John Dagleish, who won the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical for Sunny Afternoon, plays the Baker, with Laura Pitt-Pulford as the Baker’s Wife. Simbi Akande is Cinderella, Keith Ramsay is Jack, Gracie McGonigal is Little Red Riding Hood, and Matthew Seadon-Young doubles Cinderella’s Prince and the Wolf.
Jordan Fein directs. The music and lyrics are by Stephen Sondheim, whose other work includes Sweeney Todd, Company and A Little Night Music, and the book is by James Lapine, who wrote and directed the original Broadway production in 1987. The staging began at the Bridge Theatre and won the 2026 Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival, with a second Olivier for its lighting design, before moving to St Martin’s Lane.
How long is it, and what should I know before I arrive?
The running time is 2 hours 40 minutes including one interval, so it is a full evening rather than a short one. The age guidance is 12 and over. The production uses haze, loud noises, flashing lights and strobe, which is worth checking against anybody in the party who would rather avoid them. It is also worth saying plainly that the title and the fairy tales are misleading as a guide to the second half: the show earns its age guidance, and small children brought along for the storybook will be sitting through something else entirely after the interval.
Where is it, and what will it cost?
The Noel Coward Theatre is at 85-88 St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4AU, a short walk from Leicester Square. Tickets currently start at £15, and that figure moves as a run fills, so the cheapest seats on sale in September will not be the cheapest seats on sale in December. The booking period runs to Saturday 9 January 2027, which covers Christmas and the New Year — the weeks that go first on a title families recognise.
What else should I book if I like it?
Four others on sale now. Hadestown is the closest relative in town: a myth retold as a musical, with a second half that knows exactly where it is going and goes there anyway. Cabaret is the other West End revival where the design does as much of the work as the score. Kimberly Akimbo at Hampstead Theatre is a contemporary American musical with the same habit of getting a laugh and then taking it back. And Rent at the Tom Stoppard Theatre is the other big revival opening this autumn, if the appeal here is seeing a familiar score done properly rather than the fairy tales.
Into the Woods is booking now at the Noel Coward Theatre, from 22 September 2026 to 9 January 2027, with tickets from £15.
