What theatre productions are you looking forward to booking for 2026?

[FatCatSkinnyRat]

My DH and I have started going to the theatre Saturday matinees more regularly now our kids are older teens and we can leave them home alone on Saturday afternoons!!

We have booked Dracula so far as Australian friends have raved about it but wondering what else is coming out that people are excited about?

Got back earlier from watching ‘Barnum’, and really enjoyed it (despite the slight technical hitch).

Lee Mead was excellent, along side his co-star Monique Young, and also Dominique Planter (multiple roles) had an amazing voice. The show was high octane with a lot of circus acts throughout, and some of the trapeze work was amazing.

I absolutely loved the 80s Barnum with Michael Crawford, and still rank it as my top live musical theatre experience, so I was slightly concerned whether I should see it again, but I wasn’t disappointed. Lee Mead and the whole cast did a sterling job, and I came away satisfied.

Forgot to mention, yes, Lee Mead did do the tight rope, and got across successfully!

@Silverbirchleaf I saw it on Thursday and totally agree. It was a really fun night out.

Thank you, just booked one for next week.

Saw Care at The Young Vic this afternoon. Brilliant. The acting was phenomenal and the story was excellent. We cried like babies!
I need recommendations for a comedy next!!

Saw Romeo and Juliet at the Harold Pinter theatre earlier this week with Sadie Sink. Took my DD13 who's a huge Sadie Sink fan.

It was an interesting production and played a lot on the idea of time with almost a sliding doors "what if this scene happened differently" sort of theme, which I hadn't seen before.

Sadie Sink played Juliet as a sort of mouth-running-too-fast-making-herself-cringe teenager, and managed to draw a lot of comedy from the role. The serious bits I was less impressed by.

I loved the direction of the ending, which I won't spoil, but I felt it really gave necessary weight to "what could have happened" and sent a good message against suicidal ideation which is a worry with teenagers.

DD was disappointed that Sadie Sink wasn't at the stage door on the night we went, but we had a lovely evening anyway.

Now seen The Tempest at the RST. It was very good,very enjoyable and would recommend it but it's not a 'knock your socks off' production. Branagh is great as you would expect and the set design is spectacular. I hadn't realised that Guy Henry was in it - he is playing Stefano and is v. funny.

I didn't really rate the actress playing Miranda and she didn't really have any plausible chemistry with Branagh for me which given the importance of that relationship to Prospero's story was a bit of a weakness. She would periodically stroke his face which given their supposed ages didn't ring true at all - he's not in his dotage to be treated like a kindly grandpa, so it looked a bit weird. The Prospero/Ariel relationship worked much better.

There are some very interesting directorial choices including to have Caliban not as any kind of monster/ 'mooncalf' but simply a black man and the character is purely viewed through a lens of colonialism. There is a good piece by Richard Eyre in the programme on this.

I loved the way Prospero interacted with the set design.

Sort of in the 4/5 category rather than wow 5/5 category.

@rumtumtuggeristhanks for the review, we are seeing it next week. Also just booked Cyrano de Bergerac.

I agree.

The production was not as good as Branagh.

Spectacular opening scene.

I think it worked, emphasising the Colonial theme, but I missed any raw anger or hatred in Caliban. And the power mongering and annexing of women amongst the other nobility was a bit weak - it is an island where they are all up for profiteering.

Slightly odd ending.

And I didn't like the glittery-fairy interpretation of Ariel - Ariel again is both oppressed and powerful and the relationship with Prospero seemed more peevish and flittery than the fluidity and muscularity I have always imagined Ariel to have. I much preferred Hytner's fairy folk at the Bridge than Eyre's here.

But I am very glad I went.

@Followspot - yes I agree about the ending. Don't want to give any spoilers here for those who haven't seen The Tempest (RSC) but --

trying to avoid spoilers but don't read on if you are sensistive to spoilers --

I wasn't aware of anything in the text that supported that. It made me want to go back to re-read the play to see whether there was anything between them. I mean those characters have no real relationship. It could be more of the freed from colonialism bright new future theme.

I also found it odd because the ending of that play is an actual epilogue and a speech addressed to the audience with a specific plea for applause ('your good hands') so it felt a bit disjointed to delay that applause ending in that way.

Exactly!

My next shows are Firebird at the Southwark Playhouse and the WE transfer of Arcadia.

Planning ahead (not publicised yet but I happen to know) the same team who did the fantastic Forsyte Saga at Park Theatre and then RSC are doing a version of Cranford at the Orange Tree in Richmond in Nov / Dec and that will be a must for me.

I’ve booked Beetlejuice for a couple of weeks time for my daughter’s birthday.

Oooh, Cranford sounds fun, and I adore the Orange Tree. @FollowSpot , if the WE transfer of Arcadia is even half as good as the run at the Old Vic you’ll have a great time.

I’ve booked the Oresteia ar the Bridge for September and Cyrano for August. I had hoped to squeeze in High Society at the Barbican for DD and me once her GCSEs finish, but there isn’t a date that works and has affordable tickets before we go on holiday.

Edited because autocorrect thought it knew better than I did and turned Cranford into Crawford.

Saw the Tempest last night. It's not a play I know well so I found the treatment of Caliban really interesting and I liked the ending but as I said I don't know the play well enough to have felt like it didn't sit right.

The staging though. Wowsers.

Also the RSC shouldn't allow any drinks into the auditorium. Obviously the plastic 'glasses' aren't at risk of breaking but the number of times we heard them toppling over under people's seats and falling down a step to the level in front was distracting.

Just seen that Arcadia is transferring to the Duke of York’s from 20 June.. I’m getting tickets!

Not theatre, but for theatre aficionados: I saw The Christophers at the cinema this week. A small-canvas discursive piece which many will not like as a film, maybe, BUT Sir Ian McK is absolutely stupendous. Very theatre-based acting, a full character based performance, I was glued to him throughout. He is a genius.

I agree, Ian McKellan was absolutely superb in it, I really enjoyed it but you can see why some didn't.

I didn't make it to Les Liaisons, I allowed loads of travel time but there was a signalling fault on my railway line and all trains into and out of London cancelled that night. Really annoying as well as a waste of money.

I'm looking at The Cherry Orchard for later in the year, I've seen it by a local theatre group and really enjoyed it. Just trying to figure out dates, I sometimes find it harder a long way in advance because there's so much choice and then something else immovable pops up, so for example a week after I booked JCS and a day off work, a work event that I would really have liked to attended has popped up and I could have gone to JCS literally any time all summer but had booked that particular date.

@EnchantingDecoration any chance of pleading your case to the National Theatre? I'd like to hope they might give you a credit note 🤞

I had a similar but different experience, a train strike, so admittedly I was able to ask in advance.

@EnchantingDecoration did you have ticket insurance?

No, they didn't offer insurance (I guess because you can cancel up to 24 hours before the performance there unlike most places). I might try contacting them, I did at least get the train fare refunded, really the train companies should be liable but I guess they'd all be bankrupt. When it became clear I wasn't going to get there I tried posting the ticket on Twickets but couldn't get the QR code to upload from my phone, by the time I got home again it was too late.

I don't always take the insurance because the only time I would have actually claimed on it has been when I've been ill but not ill enough for a doctor's note as proof, but I think I will from now on, certainly if it involves train travel rather than local theatre.

@EnchantingDecoration

I didn't make it to Les Liaisons, I allowed loads of travel time but there was a signalling fault on my railway line and all trains into and out of London cancelled that night. Really annoying as well as a waste of money.

Sorry you didn't make it as that kind of thing is infuriating as well as stressful.

I wanted to say I saw LLD and reassure you that you didn't miss much. What I mean by that was it was perfectly enjoyable but it wasn't the kind of thing where I would have thought it was so fantastic, what a terrible thing for you to miss.

Lesley Manville was great as you'd expect but like @FollowSpot said about the Tempest, the production not being as good as Branagh, I'd say the same. She was in a separate class.

The whole thing looked beautiful/stylish with the mirrors but you can see how it looked in pictures online. Turner to me didn't have enough of that dark edge that Malkovich had. I don't mind 3 hrs+ productions at all but this felt a bit long - a few glances at my watch which I never do if I'm gripped. The choreography was stylish but there was too much of it and much could have been cut. That may sound overly negative as it was good but I think if I had a time machine to go back with the knowledge I have of having seeing it, I wouldn't have bothered and waited for Lesley Manville in something else.

Trying to cheer you up by saying it was good but not unmissable.

Also the RSC shouldn't allow any drinks into the auditorium. Obviously the plastic 'glasses' aren't at risk of breaking but the number of times we heard them toppling over under people's seats and falling down a step to the level in front was distracting.

On a similar subject, many theatres now with the anti-plastic madness sell water only in cans and I wish they'd go back to plastic bottles. The noise of cans of water being opened even still water is so irritating and even worse if its sparkling water with a spluttery fizz. A metal ring pull makes a surprising amount of noise in a still auditorium whether accompanied by a fizz or not.

@rumtumtuggeris I absolutely agree about LLD.

Turner was as seductive as a spaniel puppy - yes, charming, attractive, but absolutely not sexy or seductive or dangereuse in any way. And an edge of nastiness is needed underneath a compelling sexuality because there is in fact a rape scene that was dismissed as a bit 'oops, that was unfortunate' by Turner's fluffy Valmont.

I usually really rate Marianne Ellliott's work but agree with you about the choreography. The ending was fudged, We should have been focussing on a broken woman, not on stylishly cackling chorus.

Manville was fantastic - but given the Valmont interpretation the age gap was a little lacking in credibility.

I wasn't ever emotionally engaged.