It’s the start of a new month, and November, especially the end of November means that all of the limited Christmas runs are coming to town, so this month includes a lot of family friendly Christmas classics. But within that general family friendly theme (although not completely), there’s a great mix of theatre on offer over the next month, both in and outside of London including a Christmas classic, a big classic musical revival from Leicester Curve, Shakespeare, a long-awaited musical revival and even a jukebox musical based on the music of Steps. So without further ado, here’s our list of the top picks of shows to see over the next month.
Mary Poppins: UK Tour, Bristol Hippodrome, 4 November-30 November
If you’re based in or near Bristol and looking for something exciting to see over the next month, the new UK tour of Mary Poppins which closed in the West End last year starts its 2024/25 run with a month in Bristol starting in a few days time. The musical fuses elements from both the original book and the 1964 Disney film. This new tour will mark 20 years since Mary Poppins was first staged in the UK, at the Bristol Hippodrome, so returning there for the start of this tour is very fitting. The tour will then move on to various stops throughout the UK and Ireland through the end of 2024 and 2025, with its Christmas stop being in Dublin.
A Christmas Carol: The Old Vic, 9 November-4 January
The Old Vic’s A Christmas Carol production is a London staple, having played every Christmas season in London since 2017, even during the pandemic in 2020 where they did a live broadcast so people could watch online. The Christmas classic features a new Scrooge each year, with John Simm taking on the starring role this year. It is staged in the round with onstage seating as opposed to the usual proscenium stagings used for most Old Vic productions, with the actors interacting with and handing out mince pies and satsumas to the audience prior to the show starting. If you’re looking for a Christmas classic this festive season, you can’t get much more classic than this!
Here and Now: Alexandra Theatre, 9-30 November
If you’re in Birmingham and want to see a new musical before it heads to the West End, this might be one for you, especially if you like the music of Steps as this is a jukebox musical based on their hits. The show follows the staff at a seaside superstore, but as with most jukebox musicals, the plot itself tends to be less important than the songs so if you’re a fan of Steps, then this new musical may well be for you.
The Importance of Being Earnest: National Theatre (Lyttelton), 20 November-25 January
Oliver Wilde’s classic comedy returns to London this Christmas season in the National Theatre’s Lyttelton space, the mid-size theatre of the venue’s three performance spaces with a starry cast including Sharon D Clarke, Ncuti Gatwa and Hugh Skinner. The play is a classic comedy of mistaken identity as two young men take on dual identities in order to avoid their social responsibilities….only to discover they have accidentally taken on the same identity as “Ernest” which naturally leads to a lot of misunderstandings. This very buzzy revival has already sold very well, with most performances sold out but you can still get tickets through the £10 Friday Rush scheme which runs every Friday at 1pm and offers £10 tickets for the next week’s performances, with the first release being on 15 November. The play will also be filmed for the theatre’s NT Live Scheme and released in cinemas early next year.
The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, The Other Palace, 23 November-2 February
Percy Jackson fans rejoice! Five years after premiering on Broadway in 2019, the Percy Jackson musical is finally set to come over to the UK for a festive run at The Other Palace starting next month and playing through till the beginning of February. The musical is adapted from Rick Riordan’s best selling book of the same name, and follows teenager Percy Jackson as he discovers he is a demigod, son of the Greek god Poseidon and is plunged into a whole new world of gods and monsters and onto a dangerous quest to retrieve Zeus’ lightning bolt which he has been accused of stealing. With the Disney+ series recently released and the musical now on it’s way to London, it’s never been a better time to be a Percy Jackson fan.
My Fair Lady: Curve Theatre, 23 November-4 January
For those based in and around Leicester and who enjoy classic musicals, you’re bound to be delighted for the pick for this year’s festive offering at The Curve as they are staging a new production of My Fair Lady, the classic story of Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle, who is taken under the wing of phonetics professor Henry Higgins as part of a wager with a colleague who believes he cannot train her to speak “properly”. If you’re looking for a classic show suitable for the entire family over Christmas, then you can’t go too far wrong with this one.
Twelfth Night: Orange Tree Theatre, 23 November-25 January
London really does love Shakespeare. This is the second production of Twelfth Night we’ll have seen this year, with Regent’s Park staging an open air version over the summer. The Orange Tree’s production takes the classic Shakespeare tale and resets it in a 1940s house with Olivia as the Lady of the House, Malvolio as her butler and Viola and Sebastian as two shipwrecked strangers, washed ashore and needing to take shelter in the house. Twelfth Night also features a star studded cast, with leading Shakespearean actor Oliver Ford Davies taking on the role of Malvolio and Sex Education’s Patricia Allison taking on the role of Viola.
Ballet Shoes: National Theatre (Olivier), 26 November-22 February
For their big Christmas production this year in the large Olivier space (the largest of the National’s three auditoria), the National Theatre are adapting bestselling children’s book Ballet Shoes. The story follows three adopted sisters, Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil who have big ambitions to make a name for themselves and get their family name in the history books. Short on money, the children end up going to stage school with the idea that they will be able to begin work to support their family and the story follows their training and early careers on the stage.
The Producers: Menier Chocolate Factory, 26 November-1 March
This production will be the first major London revival of The Producers since the original West End run closed in 2007, so to say that it has been long awaited by many theatre fans is likely an understatement. Based on the Mel Brooks film of the same name, the show follows two theatre producers who aim to make a flop show after realising a flop that doesn’t run for long could actually make them more money than a hit by cooking the books and asking people to invest more money than the show will actually cost to run. They set out to make the most offensive show they can think of: Springtime For Hitler, an admiring show about Adolf Hitler written by a Nazi soldier, but their plans fall off their rails when the show becomes an unexpected success due to the audience thinking that it’s satire. The show has already been selling very well with previews completely sold out, but there are still tickets available for later in the run, so if you like comedy musicals, then it’s probably worth getting tickets for this sooner rather than later or you might miss out!
A Very Naughty Christmas: Southwark Playhouse Elephant, 28 November-11 January
If you’re looking for something a little more adult that your classic pantomime over the festive season this year, then the Southwark Playhouse has you covered, with this cult Australian comedy show that is transferring to London over the festive period this year. A Very Naughty Christmas is a comedy concert, full of stand-up, skits, singing, dancing and even some burlesque and is guaranteed to be a fun and Christmassy night out, providing something a little different from all the family friendly entertainment that tends to be on at this time of year.
Words by Jo Elliott
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