WORTH A LOOK?: ****
Tracklist: Remedy; Waiting On Nina; Sea Change; Fault Lines; The Thread; Removed; Collapsing; DLR; Silhouette On The Hill; Three Moon Trail; Tunnels
Rather than a brat summer, this season has been more Confessions II or Pride summer for us but this understated debut album has grown in stature thanks to repeated play.
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
Madonna’s latest album Confessions II stakes a claim to be the best LP of the year so far and this is a remix of 1 of its many singles with a guest duet vocal with another of the world’s biggest gay icons.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ***
WHEN? Saturday 1 August, opens 11 August and runs through 12 September 2026.
It feels like musical theatre has never been more popular and yet we can’t help but also think that not everything’s ripe to see its characters burst into song.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2
WHEN? Sunday 2 August (matinee), opens 4 August and runs through 27 September 2026 RUNTIME: 160 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
X Factor winner Burke (Chicago, Phoenix Theatre) is Chaka Khan and encores with a mash-up of her biggest hits – I Feel For You, Ain’t Nobody and I’m Every Woman – and it’s a joyous end to the story of a complicated woman born ahead of her time in the surprise hit show of the summer.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN? Saturday 1 August (matinee), opens 6 August and runs through 12 September 2026 RUNTIME: 135 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
It’s the extraordinarily moving song Memory – sample lyric: ‘I remember the time I knew what happiness was, let the Memory live again’ – which elevates this Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on T.S. Eliot’s poems in Old Possum’s Book Of Practical Cats.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN? Saturday 18 July, and runs through 5 September 2026. Transfers to Theatre Royal Drury Lane 16 October through 9 January 2027. Tickets Also UK tour 11 February 2027 through 23 October 2027 RUNTIME: 125 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
The summer success of last year’s Olivier Award-winning EVITA! perhaps made this resurrection of a recent Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production of an Andrew Lloyd Webber classic an obvious choice as follow up.
By Aline Mahrud
WORTH A LOOK?: ***
WHEN? Thursday 16 July and runs through 15 August 2026 RUNTIME: 75 minutes (without interval)
Galvin (pictured above left) makes his London theatre debut while his husband Ben Platt is about to open across town in new musical Midnight At The Never Get at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: Awards potential
WHEN? Monday 13 July, opens 20 July and runs through 12 September 2026 RUNTIME: 100 minutes (no interval)
As this musical reaches its conclusion we can hear sniffing, stifled sobbing and crying around our front row seat showing the work’s immediate emotional impact.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: *****
WHEN? Friday 10 July, festival runs through 11 July 2026
Former Talking Heads frontman Byrne is 1 of the headliners at Latitude Festival in a fortnight and this is simply 1 of the best gigs we’ve ever seen.
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ****
WHEN? Wednesday 8 July, festival runs through 11 July and Sigrid tours through 5 September 2026
SETLIST: I’ll Always Be Your Girl; Burning Bridges; Plot Twist; Sucker Punch; Jellyfish; High Five; Head On Fire; Mirror; Don’t Feel Like Crying; Do It Again; Have You Heard This Song Before?; Home To You; Dynamite; It Gets Dark; Fort Knox; Don’t Kill My Vibe; Strangers
It’s over 30 degrees in Barcelona’s Parc del Fòrum by the sea as Sigrid takes to the stage as 1 of the opening acts of this 4-day festival which means ‘crossroads’ in Catalan.
