Though the last major opening of 2024 saw a less than positive response to Sigourney Weaver’s West End debut in Jamie Lloyd’s production of The Tempest, don’t be downhearted – a new year is here with a multitude of plays and musicals!
Increasingly, the West End seems to be leaning on star names to draw in the punters (yes, we’re looking at you Jamie Lloyd) and it appears that 2025 will be no different (yes, again, we’re looking at you Jamie Lloyd).
With Tom Hiddleston, Hayley Atwell, Ewan McGregor, Cate Blanchett, Brian Cox, Brie Larson, Gary Oldman, Jonathan Bailey and more lined up, we take a look at the ‘Stars on Stage’ you won’t want to miss in 2025.
Stars on Stage in 2025
Brie Larson in Elektra at Duke of York’s Theatre, London
Oscar-winner and Marvel superhero, Brie Larson makes her West End debut in Elektra, a new adaptation of Sophocles’ play Electra by poet Anne Carson. It’s one of several Sophocles’ plays to have found themselves revived/reinvented over the past year alongside Antigone (The Other Place at the National Theatre) and two versions of Oedipus Rex – one in the West End last year and one opening at the Old Vic in a few weeks starring Rami Malek (we’ll come onto that). What is bringing theatre back to these Greek tragedies? Well, Larson describes the play, which sees the titular Elektra seeking vengeance for her father’s assassination, as a “timeless story.” Vegence is timeless. I’m intrigued to see what Daniel Fish, who directed the excellent stripped-back Oklahoma! at the Young Vic, does with the production which, interestingly, plays a week of shows in Brighton before it lands in the West End.
Elektra is at the Theatre Royal Brighton from 13 to 18 January and the Duke of York’s Theatre, London from 24 January to 12 April 2025
Rami Malek in Oedipus at the Old Vic, London
As one London Oedipus wraps up another appears. Oscar-winner Rami Malek stars alongside Olivier Award-winner Indira Varma in a second version of Oedipus at the Old Vic. Bizarrely, the two productions were announced half an hour apart this time last year.
The new version which plays the Old Vic, which marks Rami Malek’s UK stage debut, is written by Ella Hickson and co-directed by Matthew Warchus and Hofesh Shechter. The chorus in Hickson’s version by dancers who remain wordless – the chorus’s lines replaced with interpretive dance.
Those who saw the Mark Strong-fronted production may find themselves with Oedipus fatigue – it’s not a play you want to run headfirst back into: it’s heavy stuff. Still, the strength of its cast will be enough to pull plenty of punters back in for another go, even if I’m personally on the fence about the interpretive dance chorus.
Oedipus is at the Old Vic, London from 21 January to 29 March 2025
Ewan McGregor in My Master Builder at Wyndham’s Theatre, London
It’s a decade since Ewan McGregor was last seen on stage in The Real Thing on Broadway. You have to back a further seven years before his previous London show and another two years on top of that before his last West End performance. A lot can happen in 17 years: in the intervening period McGregor has starred in some great films and television shows and, if we’re being honest, he’s appeared in an awful lot of duff too. Personally, I prefer when he plays himself on a motorbike so that I can live vicariously through his adventures. But his return to the London stage in a new version of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder written by American playwright Lila Raicek and directed by Michael Grandage is a ‘Big Deal.’ And maybe there’s a chance of a motorbike? Probably not.
My Master Builder is at Wyndham’s Theatre, London from 29 April to 12 July 2025
Jonathan Bailey in Richard II at the Bridge Theatre, London
Bridgerton star Jonathan Bailey’s takes on Shakespeare in the gap between the releases of Wicked and its sequel Wicked: For Good where the actor plays Fiyero. Richard II marks a welcome return of new productions at the Bridge Theatre with the theatre having been occupied by Guys and Dolls for the past two years. Multiple extensions for the musical meant that shows presumably planned for the theatre ended up playing in other locations, such as Giant with John Lithgow which opened at the Royal Court instead. Nicholas Hytner directs Bailey having also directed Giant and every production at the Bridge since theatres reopened after the first lockdown. Well, he did found theatre. It’s Bailey’s first appearance onstage since Cock opposite Taron Egerton in 2022.
The last major production of Richard II in London was the relatively minor take by Joe Hill-Gibbins’ at the Almeida in 2018 featuring Simon Russell Beale as the titular king in a production so disappointing we can only hope that Russell Beale gets another go at the role – his great potential wasted in Hill-Gibbins’ odd production which felt more like a first rehearsal of an experimental take than a full production. The last good production was David Tennent’s Christ-like Richard under Gregory Doran for the RSC five years earlier. Where might Bailey’s turn to deliver the lines “let us sit upon the ground and tell sad tales of the death of kings” land between those two parallels?
Richard II is at the Bridge Theatre, London from 10 February to 10 May 2025
Brian Cox in The Score at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London
Following on from his performance in Long Day’s Journey into Night in the West End last year, Succession star Brian Cox is back in the West End with the London transfer of The Score, directed by Trevor Nunn. The play opened in Bath to rave reviews for Cox’s performance as the composer Johann Sebastian Bach in 2023. Set in 1747, the play follows Bach as he reluctantly visits the court of Frederick II, Europe’s most ambitious and dangerous leader in Potsdam, Prussia. I found myself a little underwhelmed by Long Day’s Journey Into Night when I reviewed it for the Irish Post last year, though Cox was very good. Will this production be a hit?
The Score is at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London from 20 February to 26 April 2025
Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell in Much Ado About Nothing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London
OK, where to start? There’s been a considerable cooling of the Jamie Lloyd hype recently. After a string of productions with a star name (Tom Holland, Sigourney Weaver, James McEvoy, Emilia Clarke, Paapa Essiedu, Taylor Russell, Nicole Scherzinger) whispering into microphones on minimalistic stages wearing monochrome sweatpants, the shtick is wearing thin, landing Lloyd’s current production, The Tempest featuring Sigourney Weaver, with a string of poor reviews from critics after a swathe of ambivalent reviews for his previous outing with the Tom Holland-fronted media circus that was Romeo and Juliet.
Can Lloyd turn the ship around with Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell as the leads in Much Ado About Nothing or will it, like Antonio’s ship in The Tempest, find itself ground upon the rocks at Theatre Royal Drury Lane The revival of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal with Hiddleston has been my favourite of the ten or so Lloyd productions I’ve seen by a considerable distance, so I have my fingers crossed.
Much Ado About Nothing is at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London from 10 February to 5 April 2025
Gary Oldman in Krapp’s Last Tape at the Theatre Royal York
Gary Oldman returns to the stage for the first time since the late 1980s to the theatre where his acting career began, the Theatre Royal York, in Samuel Beckett’s one-man play, Krapp’s Last Tape. This is probably the production I’m most looking forward to this year.
The late John Hurt’s starring role as Krapp at the Gate Theatre, Dublin back in 2013 is one of my favourite stage performances (you can find a film version on YouTube) – the final moments were truly devastating in his take. How will Oldman compare? With an incredible CV and his current success in Slow Horses, it’s a surprise that the show hasn’t already sold out.
Krapp’s Last Tape is at the Theatre Royal York from 14 April to 17 May 2025
Cate Blanchett, Tom Burke, Emma Corrin and Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Seagull at the Barbican Theatre, London
This new production of Chekhov’s The Seagull by Thomas Ostermeier, following on from his production of An Enemy of the People in the West End last year, could be described as starry before you even mention the jewel in its crown in Cate Blanchett.
Tom Burke, Emma Corrin and Kodi Smit-McPhee join the Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress in the play about a celebrated actress whose larger-than-life presence dominates both the stage and her personal relationships. Can Ostermeier offer up theatre as intriguing and divisive as the second act of his version of An Enemy of the People which turned the microphone to the audience for their input on proceedings?
The Seagull is at the Barbican Theatre, London from 26 February to 5 April 2025
Ruth Wilson and Michael Shannon in A Moon for the Misbegotten at the Almeida Theatre, London
I’m intrigued by the Almeida’s upcoming production of Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten, an autobiographical play which acts as a sequel to Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Yes, I’ve already said I wasn’t sold on last year’s West End production of that play, but I’ve seen previous productions that I’ve loved – notably with Jeremy Irons and Lesley Manville in 2018.
A Moon for the Misbegotten stars Ruth Wilson and Michael Shannon and is directed by Rebecca Frecknall, whose take on A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in this theatre was one of my top plays of 2024. It’s been almost two decades since this lesser-performed O’Neill play has been seen in London – then starring Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic. Back then, Michael Billington described it as a “scorching play about the eternal American theme of reality and illusion.” What can this cast and creative team deliver in the intimacy of the Almeida’s space? I’m expecting an intensely claustrophobic production.
A Moon for the Misbegotten is at the Almeida Theatre, London from 17 June to 16 August 2025
Rosamund Pike in Inter Alia at the National Theatre
Part of Rufus Norris’s final season as Artistic Director of the National Theatre, Inter Alia sees writer Suzie Miller reuniting with director Justin Martin following the success of Prima Facie which starred Jodie Comer in an Olivier and Tony Award-winning performance. It also picked up Best New Play at the 2023 Olivier Awards.
For Inter Alia, Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike takes the lead in her National Theatre debut. She plays an eminent High Court Judge forced to reckon with her professional life and role as wife, mother, friend and feminist. Dates for the production are to be confirmed but you can expect to see it sometime in the second half of the year in the Lyttelton theatre.
Inter Alia is in the Lyttleton Theatre at the National Theatre, London with dates to be confirmed.
Maxine Peake and Ben Daniel in Doubt: a parable at the Ustinov Studio, Bath
Maxine Peake heads to Bath with Ben Daniels to star in a new production of Doubt: A Parable, the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play. John Patrick Shanley’s play is set in a Catholic School in the Bronx in 1964 and follows Sister Aloysius who is convinced one of the teaching priests is abusing a vulnerable pupil. It was adapted into a film starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2008.
The production plays in the Ustinov Studio at the Theatre Royal Bath, a space where I was lucky enough to see two productions last year. Much like the A Moon for the Misbegotten at the Almeida, I’m looking forward to seeing what the intimacy of the Ustinov can give Lindsay Posner’s production – and a chance to see Maxine Peake and Ben Daniels is always worth taking.
Doubt: a parable is in the Ustinov Studio at the Theatre Royal Bath from 7 February to 7 March 2025
More stars on Stage:
Paul Mescal, Anjana Vasan and Patsy Ferran in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Noël Coward Theatre, London from 3 to 22 February 2025 (Photo: Marc Brenner)
John Lithgow in Giant at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London from 26 April to 2 August 2025. (Production image)
Stephen Mangan, Nicola Walker, Erin Doherty in Unicorn at the Garrick Theatre, London from 4 February to 26 April 2025 (Production Image)
Asa Butterfield in Second Best at Riverside Studios, London from 24 January to 22 February (Production image)
Tamsin Greig in The Deep Blue Sea at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London from 7 May to 21 June 2025 (Photo: Manuel Harlan)
Sigourney Weaver continues in The Tempest at Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London until 1 February 2025 (Photo: Marc Brenner)
Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith in Inside No 9: Stage/Fright at Wyndham’s Theatre, London from 16 January to 5 April 2025 (Production Image)
Billy Porter and Marisha Wallace in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse, London from 28 January (Production image)
Kaya Scodelario and Cliff Curtis in East is South at Hampstead Theatre, London from 7 February to 15 March (Production image)
Luke Thallon, Jared Harris, Anton Lesser, Elliot Levey, Nancy Carroll and more in Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from 8 February to 29 March (Production images)
