Theater is back and better than ever. As we welcome back the resurgence of theatrical productions in London with the West End, New York City on Broadway, and beyond, we celebrate all the shows playing now.
Whether you live in London or are visiting, here are all the mainstream London shows out now and coming soon. Check back here, as we update shows playing for March and the rest of 2023.
Want to know what to wear? Here’s our guide.
Back to the Future
We all know and love the ’80s film of the same name with Michael J. Fox. Now it’s a full-fledged musical! When Marty McFly is transported back to 1955 in a time machine built by the eccentric scientist Doc Brown, he accidentally changes the course of history. Now he’s in a race against time to fix the past and send himself… back to the future.
The show is making waves in London, and will soon have a Broadway run in NYC, starting in August of 2023.
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2:22 A Ghost Story
Jenny believes her new home is haunted, but her husband Sam isn’t having any of it. They argue with their first dinner guests, old friend Lauren and new partner Ben. Can the dead really walk again?
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& Juliet
What would Romeo & Juliet be like if Juliet hadn’t died on that fateful day along with Romeo? In this jukebox-style musical, Juliet goes on a quest to find herself. Simultaneously, she might fall in love along the way. The show features songs from artists Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and Celine Dion. Beginning its run in London, the show’s popularity brought a Broadway production to NYC and will begin at the end of October.
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The Lion King
See another Disney movie come alive with The Lion King. Following the plot of the film, the show focuses on Simba, a young cub who earns the title of the king of the pride lands. When his evil uncle wrongly blames Simba for his death, he runs away and meets a meerkat named Timone and a warthog named Pumba.
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Frozen
The Disney film is now a musical! Follow Anna as she searches for her sister, Queen Elsa, and finds out what true love means. Incredible special effects, stunning costumes, and jaw-dropping scenery bring Elsa and Anna’s journey to life in a whole new way. And with all the beloved songs from the movie – as well as a few surprises from the writers behind Let it Go — you’ll be transported to Arendelle from the moment the curtain rises.
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The Play That Goes Wrong
Running since 2014, this play is a fan favorite! The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society is putting on a 1920s murder mystery, but as the title suggests, everything that can go wrong… does! The accident-prone thespians battle against all odds to make it through to their final curtain call, with hilarious consequences!
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Moulin Rouge! The Musical
Moulin Rouge! The Musical can be found at the Piccadilly Theatre. The jukebox musical now stars Melissa James as Satine and Jamie Muscato as Christian, who fall in love in the Montmartre Quarter of Paris at the dawn of the 20th century. Moulin Rouge is an adaptation of the 2001 film directed by Baz Luhrmann and features popular contemporary songs rearranged to fit its setting.
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The Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon plays at the Prince of Wales Theatre. The hit musical, which was written by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, has been satirizing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in London since 2013.
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Six
Think you know the six wives of Henry VIII? Think again…
The crowning glory of the West End, Broadway, and beyond, history is about to get over-throne in the homegrown hit musical sensation, Six, live at the Vaudeville Theatre. If you can’t make it to the theater, check out Six’s music so you can sing along at home to the catchy tunes.
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The Phantom of the Opera
Speak of the devil (or, uh, phantom), The Phantom of the Opera centers around the exploits of soprano Christine Daaé and a mysterious masked man who lives underneath the Paris Opéra House.
While the musical will have its final Broadway performance on February 18, 2023, the show will still be running in London.
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Wicked
Theatergoers can see the story of Glinda and Elphaba which has grown into the fifth-longest-running production on Broadway. You can catch the show several nights a week with regular matinee performances. Experience the land of Oz like you never have before!
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ABBA Voyage
This is the long-awaited concert from one of the biggest pop acts of all time. Featuring a setlist of hit songs, see ABBA’s avatars accompanied by a 10-piece live band, at the custom-built ABBA Arena in London. Blurring the lines between the physical and digital, see the magic of ABBA brought to life using the latest in motion capture technology.
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Mamma Mia!
We’re having a party, and you’re invited! This smash-hit musical based on the songs of ABBA follows a young woman named Sophie as she tries to find out who her dad is before her wedding. The problem, her mother has no idea.
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Mamma Mia! The Party
What are you waiting for? Book your table and discover Björn Ulvaeus’ production of Mamma Mia! The Party, now playing at The O2, London. Feel transported to the island of Skopelos to dance, dine and have the time of your life! As the sun sets, you’ll take your seats at Nikos’ family-run taverna where you’ll enjoy a delicious four-course Greek meal before dancing the night away at a glittering ABBA disco.
Leave your cares at the door and be welcomed as honored guests by Nikos and his family. Step into Skopelos as you discover a warm, romantic, and funny story performed all around you. Experience all this alongside a live soundtrack brimming with your favorite ABBA hits and plan your getaway with family and friends to Mamma Mia! The Party for the ultimate Greek holiday experience to remember.
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The Mousetrap
Known as an iconic key to London theatre, the Agatha Christie play is one of the longest-running plays in London ever. It’s a whodunit of the ages, as 7 strangers find themselves trapped by snow in a countryside guesthouse. However, a killer is in the house, and even worse, one of the guests! Can you figure out who the murderer is?
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Matilda The Musical
See the beloved book by Ronald Dahl and the movie come to life on stage. Matilda is a young girl with extraordinary powers, a great imagination, and an intelligent mind. She continues to question the status quo and change her future.
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Les Misérables
Catch one of the most popular musicals playing in London now! Follow the story of Jean Valjean as he is freed from prison and breaks parole but makes his way as a mayor and factory owner. His past transgressions come back to haunt him as he tries to do right.
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Punchdrunk: The Burnt City
Amidst the moments surrounding the fall of Troy, a mythical world of gods and mortals rises from the ashes. Discover a colossal playground that you are free to explore. Move between the haunting palace of Greece to the pulsating neon back streets of downtown Troy. Follow strangers who emerge from the shadows and seek out tales hiding in the deepest parts of the city.
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Witness for Prosecution
Leonard Vole is accused of murdering a widow to inherit her wealth. The stakes are high – will Leonard survive the shocking witness testimony, will he be able to convince the jury, and you of his innocence and escape the hangman’s noose?
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Faulty Towers: The Dining Experience
This 2-hour interactive production is set in a restaurant where all of the audience is involved! Three performers inhabit the spirit of Torquay’s most inept hoteliers Basil, Sybil, and Manuel to a ‘T’, and you’ll be caught up in their madcap melee even as you dig into your 3-course lunch or dinner.
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Heathers The Musical
The fun-loving, murder-filled musical is back! Veronica Sawyer is just another nobody dreaming of a better day. But when she joins the beautiful and impossibly cruel Heathers and her dreams of popularity may finally come true, mysterious teen rebel JD teaches her that it might kill to be a nobody, but it is murder being a somebody.
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Cabaret
The sensual iconic musical is returning! Catch it before it sells out because tickets are selling fast. As we follow a cabaret club in Berlin, we loosen up but discover deeper darker secrets below.
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The Choir of Man
The multi-talented cast of nine guys combines beautiful harmonies and foot-stomping singalongs with world-class tap dance and poetic meditations on the power of community. This is a riotously feel-good homage to that gathering place we’ve all missed so much over the last year: the pub. With a real working bar on stage, come ready to drink in the action!
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Jersey Boys
Jersey Boys tells the story of four guys from New Jersey. They had a sound nobody had ever heard… and the radio just couldn’t get enough of it. From the streets of New Jersey to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this is the musical that’s too good to be true.
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Pretty Woman
The movie starring Julia Roberts is now set for the stage. Vivian and Edward are unlikely soulmates who overcome all odds to find each other. Experience the moments you love from the movie — and get to know these iconic characters in a whole new way — in this dazzlingly joyous theatrical take on a love story for the ages.
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Austentatious — An Improvised Jane Austen Novel
The award-winning smash-hit comedy, as heard on BBC Radio 4, opens at the Arts Theatre. The all-star Austentatious cast improvises a hilarious new Jane Austen novel every night! Inspired entirely by a title from the audience and performed in period costume with live musical accompaniment — it’s a riotous, razor-sharp show where swooning is guaranteed.
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Bat Out of Hell
This award-winning wild-child musical thunders through Meat Loaf’s legendary powerhouse anthems including: “I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That),” “Paradise By The Dashboard Light,” “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad,” “Dead Ringer For Love,” and “Bat Out of Hell,” in an over the top theatrical spectacle unlike any other.
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Dirty Dancing — The Classic Story on Stage
Dirty Dancing is back! Exploding with heart-pounding music, breathtaking emotion, and sensationally sexy dancing.
Seen by millions across the globe this worldwide smash hit tells the classic story of Baby and Johnny, two fiercely independent young spirits from different worlds, who come together in what will be the most challenging and triumphant summer of their lives. See the hit film come to life before your eyes with this fantastic, emotional, and triumphant live-stage show.
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George Takei’s Allegiance
Inspired by the life story of renowned actor and activist George Takei, the UK premiere of the uplifting Broadway musical, Allegiance, follows the story of the Kimura family and their struggles in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
In a world ravaged by the effects of war, Allegiance reveals the courage and loyalty of family in a time of great injustice as 120,000 Japanese Americans are forced into internment camps, testing the power and resilience of the human spirit.
Sam Kimura (Telly Leung) believes enlisting is the way to demonstrate his patriotism and win the freedom of his people. His sister Kei (Aynrand Ferrer) sides against him and joins the resistance movement in the camp. Soon the political conflict is mirrored within the Kimura family, leading brother and sister down starkly different paths as they decide where their allegiance lies.
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Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons
‘Let’s just talk until it goes.’
You’re going to speak more than 123 million words in your lifetime. What will you do when they run out?
Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons is a tender and funny rom-com about what we say, how we say it, and what happens when we can’t say anything anymore.
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Magic Mike Live
Conceived and directed by Channing Tatum, Magic Mike Live is an unforgettable fun night of sizzling, 360-degree entertainment based on the hit movies. It’s hot. It’s hilarious. It’s the great time you’ve been waiting for!
This first-class experience features some of the world’s sexiest, most talented guys performing heart-racing dance routines in front of, above, and all around you. Equal parts empowering and exhilarating, the 90-minute show is punctuated by unexpected, temperature-raising acts from a thrilling range of acrobatic and musical talent. In other words, it’s got basically everything.
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Medea
Medea tells the story of a woman laid bare by grief and rage, and her terrible quest for revenge against the men who have abandoned her.
Sophie Okonedo brings her visceral, mercurial brilliance to literature’s most titanic female protagonist, whose complexity and contradictions have kept audiences on the edge of their seats, unable to look away, for almost 2,500 years.
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My Son’s a Queer (But What Can You Do?)
Following sold-out runs at the Turbine Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe, and the Garrick Theatre, Rob Madge brings their triumphant celebration of the ups and downs of raising a queer child back to the West End in 2023 for this strictly limited season.
When Rob was twelve, they attempted a full-blown Disney parade in their house for their grandma. As Rob donned wigs and played Mary Poppins, Ariel, Mickey Mouse, and Belle, their dad doubled as Stage Manager, Sound Technician, and Goofy. Unfortunately, Dad missed all his cues and pushed all the floats in the wrong direction. Mum mistook Aladdin for Ursula. The costumes went awry. Grandma had a nice time, though.
My Son’s a Queer (But What Can You Do?) is the joyous autobiographical story of social-media sensation Rob Madge as they set out to recreate that infamous parade — and this time, nobody, no, nobody is gonna rain on it.
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Newsies
Disney’s Newsies, the sensational family musical with music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Jack Feldman, and book by Harvey Fierstein is now playing at London’s Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre for a limited season. As the action explodes into the space, spilling off the stage in this high-octane extravaganza, audiences are transported to the streets of New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Expect gravity-defying stunts performed by an astonishing ensemble, in this rousing true story of teenage newspaper sellers dreaming of a better life far from the hardship of the streets.
Packed full of extraordinary choreography on an epic scale, this inspiring production has won over audiences and critics alike. Do not miss this ‘theatrical force of nature’ (Mail On Sunday), seize the day and book your tickets now to see this undeniable hit!
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Sleepova
Join Rey, Elle, Shan, and Funmi. Armed with sugary snacks, school gossip, and secret questions they can only ask each other, their sleepovas are pretty much a sacred space for them.
As each year tugs them further into adulthood and life doesn’t pan out quite as they imagined, they struggle to hold on to a friendship that they swore would last a lifetime. Sleepova is an ode to black women, their boundless spirits, and wild dreams.
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Sylvia
This revolutionary story celebrates the life of Sylvia Pankhurst — feminist, activist, pacifist, socialist, rebel — the lesser-known Pankhurst at the heart of the Suffragette movement, who changed the lives of working women and men across the world.
Following its 2018 run as a work-in-progress, Kate Prince’s Sylvia is back where it all began for its world premiere, uniting dance, hip-hop, funk, and soul to shine a light on a remarkable moment in history, with original music by Josh Cohen and DJ Walde.
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The Lehman Trilogy
features a cast of three playing the Lehman brothers, their sons and grandsons, in an extraordinary feat of story-telling told in three parts on a single evening. Hailed by The New York Times as ‘a genuinely epic production’, The Lehman Trilogy is the story of a family and a company that changed the world.
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The Unfriend
While on holiday Peter and Debbie befriend Elsa: a lusty, Trump-loving widow from Denver, Colorado, USA. She’s less than woke but kind of wonderful. They agree to stay in touch – because no one ever really does, do they?
When Elsa invites herself to stay a few months later, they decide to look her up online. Too late, they learn the truth about Elsa Jean Krakowski. Deadly danger has just boarded a flight to London! What began as a casual holiday friendship is suddenly a threat to the lives of their children.
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Tina
From humble beginnings in Nutbush, Tennessee, to her transformation into the global Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Tina Turner didn’t just break the rules, she rewrote them. This new stage musical, presented in association with Tina Turner herself, reveals the untold story of a woman who dared to defy the bounds of her age, gender, and race.
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Titus Andronicus
Get inside the beating heart of Shakespeare’s first and most deadly revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus, performed in the Globe’s intimate, indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse for the first time.
After a brutal 10-year battle, honored Roman general Titus Andronicus embarks on an era of bloodshed when he refuses to show mercy to the eldest son of Tamora, Queen of the Goths. Betrayed by his nation, and with his family in ruins, Titus seeks justice the only way he knows how — tooth for tooth and limb for limb.
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To Kill a Mockingbird
Richard Coyle plays Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, Aaron Sorkin‘s new play based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, directed by Bartlett Sher, now open at the Gielgud Theatre.
Harper Lee‘s enduring story of racial injustice and childhood innocence has sold 45 million copies worldwide. On Broadway, the production has not played to an empty seat and has become the most successful American play in Broadway history.
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Trouble in Butetown
In her illegal boarding house in Butetown, Cardiff, Gwyneth Mbanefo (Sarah Parish) toils tirelessly to keep afloat.
It was a port town during the war; home to souls from every corner of the globe. When Nate (BIFA winner Samuel Adewunmi), an African American GI, escapes his barracks and discovers this new world without segregation, can he find safe harbor in Tiger Bay? And with danger on every corner, who can he trust?
