WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE? Trafalgar Studios RUN TIME: 105 minutes (usually, with no interval)
WHEN?: 10/12 (press ticket) runs to 23/2/19
They say the show must go on but it doesn’t always and it didn’t the last time we saw a cast member taken ill during a performance.
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHERE? Palladium RUN TIME: 2 hours and 45 minutes (including 20-minute interval)
WHEN?: 9/12/18 (matinee), press night 12/12/18, runs to 13/1/19
This year this annual pantomime extravaganza at London’s iconic Palladium won the Best Entertainment and Family Olivier Award.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE? Bush Theatre (Studio) RUN TIME: 1 hour (no interval)
WHEN?: 4/12 runs to 22/12/18
If you’re looking for the ’10s answer to 1993’s groundbreaking play Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey – with songs – then look no further.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE? Theatre Royal Haymarket RUN TIME: 2 hours 5 minutes (excluding 20-minute interval)
WHEN?: 3/12 runs to 12/1/19
Do you remember the 1st time?
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHERE? Greenwich Theatre RUN TIME: 2 hours 15 minutes (including interval)
WHEN?: 30/11 (press ticket) runs to 13/1/19
Broadway said an enthusiastic ‘Hello Dolly’ to Bette Midler this year and we feel exactly the same about Andrew Pollard who returns to the Greenwich Theatre pantomime in 2018 as Delores ‘Dolly’ Crusoe (centre above), mother of the titular hero.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE? Vaudeville Theatre RUN TIME: 2 hours (including interval)
WHEN?: 24/11, press night 3/12, runs to 23/2/19
Game of Thrones star Kit Harington last appeared on a West End stage two-and-a-half years ago and we wrote then how a very young audience whooped with delight at his performance.
WHERE? Dorfman Theatre, National
RUN TIME: 75 minutes (without interval)
WHEN?: 17/11/18
Author Bryna Turner explains the conflict at the heart of her play is between a revolutionary, the old guard and someone seeking to make progress, and its star Fiona Shaw adds 1 word – ‘Brexit’.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE? Bush Theatre RUN TIME: 75 minutes no interval
WHEN?: (press ticket) 13/11, runs to 24/11/18
One of the reasons we love the Bush Theatre in Shepherd’s Bush, south-west London, is that it champions new writing that both challenges but also seems rooted in reality.
WORTH A LOOK?: ***
WHERE? Harold Pinter Theatre RUN TIME: 2 hours and 40 minutes (including a 30-minute interval)
WHEN?: 9/11, runs to 8/12/18
We’re halfway through the Pinter At The Pinter season in the West End and there’s a real gem of 1 of his less well-known 1-act plays after the interval here.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHERE? Studio 54 RUN TIME: 85 minutes (no interval)
WHEN?: 4/11, runs to 13/1/19
‘Fake news’ is a term that is rarely out of the headlines and here we have a new American play that investigates a true story about a fact checker who challenges a writer.
