London theatre: The best returning shows you might have missed
Unless you make theatre your only pastime, you’ll never get to see every single play that London has to offer.
There are always a few you regret missing. Everyone was talking about them, but you didn’t have time. Perhaps you meant to get tickets but never got around to it – it happens to us all.
But we’re all about second chances, so here are those shows you wish you’d seen, back and in full force.
Home, I’m Darling
Katherine Parkinson reprises her role in Laura Wade’s Home, I’m Darling, her first new play since 2010’s Posh. The Standard’s Fiona Mountford welcomed Wade back in her review of the play's first run at the National Theatre saying: “You’ve been away for too long and we’ve missed you.” Tamara Harvey directs the story, which follows housewife Judy’s quest to become the perfect embodiment of a fifties domestic goddess, asking how this choice sits with her identification as a feminist. Home, I’m Darling was shortlisted for best play at the 2018 Evening Standard Theatre Awards.
February 5- April 13, Duke of York’s Theatre
Buy tickets for Home, I’m Darling with GO London
Six
The surprise hit musical about Henry VIII’s wives touring as a girl band seemed to come out of nowhere. Creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss brought the house down with Six at Edinburgh Fringe, moving to the West End only months later and meeting critical acclaim. They extended due to popular demand and its return to the Arts Theatre was announced before the initial run had finished. Not bad for their first musical. It sees Catherine, Anne, Jane, Anna, Katherine and Catherine become tired of being defined by their husband and set out to reclaim their own stories.
January 16-May 5, Arts Theatre
Buy tickets for Six with GO London
Emilia
Emilia Bassano’s story is less well known than it should be. Despite being a pioneering author in her own right, she has become known as Shakespeare’s muse, the presumed ‘dark lady’ of his sonnets. Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s play with an all-female cast and production team, which initially ran at the Globe, sees her step out of his shadow in a “light-hearted yet heartfelt hymn to the sisterhood”.
March 8-June 15, Vaudeville Theatre
Buy tickets for Emilia with GO London
The Lehman Trilogy
Adapted by Ben Power, Stefano Massini’s Italian play tells the story of the company that changed the world’s economic landscape: beginning with the Lehmans’ origins in 1844 and tracing the family’s path forward to a bankruptcy that triggered a monumental financial crisis 163 years later. Simon Russell-Beale, Adam Godley and Ben Miles return to their roles in the Sam Mendes directed production, which the Standard’s Henry Hitchings said is performed with “impressive dexterity”.
May 11-August 3, Piccadilly Theatre
Buy tickets for The Lehman Trilogy with GO London
Jesus Christ Superstar
Starting life as a concept album and growing into a famed rock opera, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar is back, running for just 60 performances in the summer. The Evening Standard Theatre Award-winning musical had two smash hit runs in 2016 and 2017 at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, and this transfer sees Timothy Sheader welcomed back as director.
July 4-August 24, Barbican Theatre
Buy tickets for Jesus Christ Superstar with GO London
The Twilight Zone
The 1960s cult TV series had a theatrical makeover from playwright Anne Washburn at The Almeida Theatre last year and touches down in the West End in March. Set in the era of Cold War paranoia, the stage play is filled with superstition, science and magic as people disappear without trace. The Standard’s Fiona Mountford called it a “terrific adaptation” that will “delight fans of the original and welcome in newcomers too”.
March 4-June 1, Ambassadors Theatre
Buy tickets for the Twilight Zone with GO London
Caroline, or Change
Sharon D Clarke led the previous runs at the Chichester Festival Theatre and Hampstead Theatre to five star reviews as Caroline, a black maid who serves a grieving Jewish family in Louisiana. Based loosely on the life of playwright Tony Kushner (who also wrote Angels in America), this musical is set in the American Civil Rights era, when change is in the air. But in the Gellman household, life is much the same – until Mrs Gellman, newly married stepmother to young boy Noah, gives underpaid Caroline the option to make some extra money, with unexpected consequences to her relationship with Noah.
Until April 6, Playhouse Theatre
Buy tickets for Caroline, or Change with GO London
Follies
It seems like we’ve been waiting ages for this Sondheim classic already. In 2017, Imelda Staunton brought Follies to Olivier Award success, meaning a very welcome revival at the National in 2019. We won’t be seeing Imelda again, but her shoes will be filled by the equally worthy and double-Olivier winner Joanna Riding. Featuring songs such as Broadway Baby, Losing My Mind and I’m Still Here, Follies sees performers reunite and reminisce in a crumbling Broadway theatre.
From February 14, National Theatre, nationaltheatre.org.uk
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Teenage mathematician “with some behavioural difficulties” Christopher John Francis Boone has found his neighbour’s dog dead on the lawn. Despite his father’s warnings, he takes up the role of detective in a quest that takes him further out of his comfort zone than he’s ever been. Based on the bestselling book by Mark Haddon, Simon Stephens’s adaptation has been on a world tour, finally returning home this year. Marianne Elliott directs the National Theatre production which runs at the Piccadilly Theatre.
Until February 23, Piccadilly Theatre, nationaltheatre.org.uk