1. Glengarry Glen Ross
Playhouse Theatre
Hollywood star Christian Slater returns to the West End in David Mamet’s profanity filled Glengarry Glen Ross. The Pulitzer Prize and Olivier Award winning play is about a group of cut-throat Chicago real estate salesmen who compete against each other in a high-stakes game to sell undesirable Florida real estate at inflated prices. This trailblazing amoral comedy is a modern classic.
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2. Network
National Theatre
Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston makes his London theatre debut in Lee Hall’s adaptation of the 1976 film Network. Directed by Ivo van Hove Network follows Cranston as a news anchor who set to be fired for low ratings launches into an on-air angry tirade with surprising results. The production also stars Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockerty and Douglas Henshall.
3. A Christmas Carol
The Old Vic
Rhys Ifans plays Scrooge in this new comic re-telling of A Christmas Carol, adapted by Jack Thorne from Charles Dickens’ classic story of greed, grief, ghoulish ghosts and eleventh hour redemption. A seasonal classic, A Christmas Carol is recommended for families with older children and is said to be an “uplifting” production “full of music and cheer”.
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4. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Apollo Theatre
The award-winning new musical from Dan Gillespie Sells of The Feeling is set to take London by storm following its sold-out world premiere in Sheffield. Inspired by the real life story of Jamie Campbell, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is a joyous new musical about an openly gay boy and his desire to do drag. Described as “Billy Elliot for today’s generation”, the production is booked to run at the Apollo Theatre into next year.
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5. Big Fish
The Other Palace Theatre
Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe winner Kelsey Grammer (Cheers, Frasier, La Cage Aux Folles, Finding Neverland) and Matt Seadon-Young star in the West End premiere of Big Fish The Musical. The show is based on Daniel Wallace’s celebrated novel ‘Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions’ and the acclaimed film directed by Tim Burton. Blending fairy-tale, romance and adventure, Grammer plays Edward Bloom a travelling salesman with a gift for story-telling. As Bloom lays dying, his son begins to question what was fact and fiction – was it all one big lie?
6. The Red Lion
Trafalgar Studios
Patrick Marber’s accalimed play The Red Lion is set in the dressing room of
Patrick Marber’s football drama about loyalty & ambition is set in the dressing room of a struggling non-league football club. The play centres on a talented young player, the veteran kit man and the ambitious manager who’ll do anything to keep the club and himself afloat. The production stars Stephen Tompkinson, John Bowler and Dean Bone who all reprise their roles at Trafalgar Studios from the Newcastle production earlier in the year.
7. Mother Courage and her Children
Southwark Playhouse
Tony Kushner’s adaptation of Brecht’s Mother Courage comes to Southwark Playhouse with award-winning actress Josie Lawrence in the titular role. Described as the greatest anti-war play of all time, it takes place in a war-ravaged land as the titular mother drags her three young children on a cart, making a living by trading with soldiers along the way. Mother Courage remains a timely exploration of displacement, war weariness and invisible enemies.
8. The Retreat
Park Theatre
Comedy legend Kathy Burke directs the world premiere of Peep Show co-creator Sam Bain’s debut play. Set in a remote stone hut in the Scottish Highlands, the comedy centres on a former high-flying exec in search of inner peace but who is unable to escape his past.
9. The Secret Theatre
Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
An Elizabethan spy thriller in which Sir Francis Walsingham oversees a huge network of surveillance. As tensions between the UK and Europe become strained Walsingham has to adapt tactics and risks losing control of the the system.
10. Goats
Royal Court Theatre
Hamish Pirie directs Syrian playwright and documentary maker Liwaa Yazji’s new drama which features live goats. Set in small war torn town in Syria, with coffins piling high, the despairing mayor sets up a compensation scheme: one goat for every ‘son martyred’.
