Looking ahead: the best theatre coming up in 2016
Book now for a year of smash hit shows including Harry Potter mania, Disney musical magic, star-studded drama and radically reworked classics
The eighth story, nineteen years later shows us, on stage in two consecutive plays, Harry Potter all grown up, waving his children off to Hogwarts. J. K. Rowling herself wrote the script in collaboration with hot young talent writer Jack Thorne, so fervent fans are unlikely to be disappointed.
Elegy, Donmar Warehouse 21 April 2016 - 18 June 2016
He blew us away with the astonishingly original Constellations and then the equally impressive Incognito, and now playwright Nick Payne returns with a new play about the complexities and repercussions of solving the mysteries of the human mind.
Groundhog Day, Old Vic, summer 2016, dates TBC
Twitter went wild at the news that cult 1990s film Groundhog Day will be turned into an all-singing, all-dancing musical. With the talented team behind Matilda The Musical creating book and lyrics, this high profile stage adaptation will be a surefire hit here and stateside. It will premiere at the Old Vic before transferring to Broadway. The booking and run dates are TBC, so watch this space for updates.
Romeo and Juliet, Garrick Theatre 12 May - 13 August
Kenneth Branagh's stellar season of plays at the Garrick continues with Shakespeare's tragic love story, boasting starlet Lily James and her Cinderella co-star Richard Madden. Expect that kind of sizzling chemistry that makes a familiar, 400-year-old play head-spinningly fresh and real.
Yerma, Young Vic 29 Jul 2016 – 10 Sep 2016
A reputation for edgy, bold productions makes the Young Vic a favourite haunt for London's hippest theatre fans. This summer Lorca's Spanish tale of a woman's desperation to conceive gets a modern makeover. Expect hard-hitting drama that drags this cannonical classic into contemporary London.
Escaped Alone, Royal Court Theatre 21 Jan 2016 – 12 Mar 2016
The Royal Court's Sixtieth anniversary season kicks off with a new, full length play by mighty playwriting talent Caryl Churchill. At 88 she's as influential and experimental as ever. So expect boundary breaking from this new play about cups of tea and the end of the world.
Aladdin, Prince Edward Theatre 27 May 2016 – 01 Oct 201
After dazzling on Broadway, Disney Productions' smash hit musical version of Aladdin finally comes to London. Get ready for Arabian nights and a West End hit that's set to give Lion King a run for its money with a topnotch creative team and pop princess playing Jasmine.
People, Places, Things, Wyndham's Theatre 15 Mar 2016 – 04 Jun 2016
Complex, multi-faceted and endlessly surprising, Headlong Theatre's inventive look at addiction thrilled us at the National's Dorfman in 2015. And the superb central performance from actor Denise Gough makes this well-deserved West End transfer mandatory viewing for those that missed out.
Iphigenia in Splott, National Theatre 27 Jan 2016 – 20 Feb 2016
Playwright Gary Owen left us reeling after the depths and deftness of adolescent drama in the Royal Court's Violence and Son. So we can't wait to see more of him in this modern retelling of Greek Myth, which premiered in Wales to a blaze of five star reviews and will get its London premiere at the National's Temporary Theatre.
