As London slowly emerges from winter, a bevy of stars—from Hollywood stalwarts to theater veterans and emerging talents—are lining up to storm the West End stage. They’re set to reimagine Shakespearean classics; delight audiences with showstopping musical numbers, both new and familiar; make us weep with their takes on Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill; and bring to life the work of some of the most exciting young writers in the industry today. These are the 10 hottest tickets in town.
The full title of Ryan Calais Cameron’s profoundly moving, Olivier Award-nominated examination of race, mental health, and modern masculinity is For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy—and while this may sound somber, this thrillingly dynamic show is anything but. It’s lighthearted and inventive, soaring and ambitious, devastating and then utterly life-affirming—the tale of six young Black men who meet for group therapy and delve deep into their passions, hopes, and traumas, clashing and connecting with each other as they ponder life’s biggest questions. After last year’s sold-out production at London’s Apollo Theatre, the play is back in the West End with a brand new cast: Tobi King Bakare, Fela Lufadeju, Albert Magashi, Mohammed Mansaray, Posi Morakinyo, and Shakeel Haakim, the latter of whom is a Royal Academy of Dramatic Art student who was actually working part-time as an usher at the Apollo during For Black Boys’s last run. If his story, and this transcendent piece of theater, don’t make you shed tears of joy, nothing will.
Until May 4
Stage legend Sheridan Smith returns to the spotlight with this new musical based on John Cassavetes’s blistering 1977 film of the same name, about an actor at the height of her powers whose latest play is heading to Broadway when her life begins to spiral out of control. Grammy nominee Rufus Wainwright has penned over 20 new songs for the occasion, Tony-winning visionary Ivo van Hove is directing, and the supporting cast includes Unorthodox’s Shira Haas, but all eyes, presumably, will be on its leading lady. “It’s going to be really close to the bone,” Smith told British Vogue of the experience of playing someone who struggles with anxiety and alcoholism, much like she herself has in the past. Her goal? “Catharsis.”
Until July 27
Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre
Since this immersive and sumptuous West End reimagining of the classic Kander and Ebb musical first opened in 2021, the likes of Jessie Buckley, Madeline Brewer, Aimee Lou Wood, Maude Apatow, and Self Esteem have all stepped into Sally Bowles’s thigh-highs to belt “Mein Herr” and “Maybe this Time.” (A Broadway iteration of the production opens at the August Wilson Theatre in April.) The latest to succeed them in the part will be none other than the electrifying Cara Delevingne, who will make her West End debut at the delightfully debauched Kit Kat Club, supported by Luke Treadaway as the gleeful Emcee. Our setting is Berlin at the twilight of the Jazz Age, as the Nazis are gaining power, and the employees and regulars at a seedy cabaret are navigating their ever-changing world—and having a lot of fun doing it. If you’re somehow yet to see this exuberant reinterpretation, which set an Olivier record as the most awards-laden revival in history with its seven wins, now is the time.
