Cultural highlights of 2025

I write a version of this introduction each year. It’s useful to have some context if you’ve stumbled across it.

During each Christmas break, one of my great pleasures is gathering my thoughts and memories of the year’s cultural outings. I love doing it and I find it invaluable as a way to jog and secure my memories.

I know you needn’t care what I think; I’ve written this for current and future me. I find it interesting to do, maybe you’ll find it interesting to read.

JANUARY

Lukasz Twarkowski: The Employees

Lukasz Twarkowski: The Employees – Queen Elizabeth Hall

I began my cultural year at a kind of immersive theatrical space rave that made me question what it means to be human.

Based on a Danish novel, staged in Polish (with surtitles), and set on a spaceship in ‘the future’. It was one of two monumental works, directed by Łukasz Twarkowski, that I was lucky to see this year.

With nods to 2001, Blade Runner and Moon, our crew comprises humans and their humanoid replicants. The story features mysterious objects with mystical powers, and an employer who has abandoned our crew or perhaps sent them beyond the point of economic retrieval.

But it is the mundanity of these lives that rang most true. The cafeteria conversations about favourite foods and the petty squabbling between people trapped together. As the journey continues we realise that the humanoids are becoming more cognisant, more falable, more human. Is it those qualities that should bring rights and empathy?

The show is set within a cube structure representing their ship. Characters are followed in and around by camera operators with footage projected on screens above. The lighting is otherworldly whilst the throbbing bass feels like it’s wired into you.

There are times when we are invited to walk around the cube, and fixed moments when techno music blasts and a countdown clock implores us to shift seats and change our perspective.

I took full advantage, beginning on the stage, cross-legged at ground level and ending way back, high in the dark empty rows of unlit seating, looking back from the void, at the Employees living their neon lit lives, hurtling through space.

FEBRUARY

Hofesh Shechter’s dancers on stage at the Old Vic.

Oedipus – Old Vic Theatre

Last year I’d seen Lesley Manville and Mark Strong in Robert Icke’s excellent modern setting of Oedipus. I was intrigued to see how different this production with Rami Malek and Indira Varma could be. Very, was the answer.

At the Old Vic, Thebes is drenched in blistering heat, the water has dried up and their once loved ruler is being questioned and found wanting. Should he listen to his wife and lead the people in search of fertile ground or stay and unravel the mystery of why the Gods are denying them rain? He places his faith in a prophet who proves his undoing.

The staging is vast, stark and bathed in orange. Malek is (as always) detached, other-worldly and god-like whilst Varma is imperious, sarcastic but ever protective of the frailty that only she seems able to see in her man.

Playing the Chorus were Hofesh Shechter’s dance company. He co-directed the show (with Matthew Warchus) and that influence is evident throughout – the movement, lighting and thumping music are quintessentially his. They took this excellent restaging to a whole new level.

MARCH

Fuel Fest – Barbican Pit

Kate McGrath has done incredible things with her company, Fuel. I was pleased to be able to chat with her at one of Cog’s Breakfast Briefings early in the year.

Not long after, Fuel celebrated 20 years of inspiring work via four very different new and in-progress works.

Beauty is the Beast by Racheal Ofori

Through a series of sketches, Ofori presents multiple perspectives on the damaging influence of the beauty industry, especially from a black perspective – from scalp-burning hair products to fat-busting injections; from Instagram perfectionism to shelves of retail plastics headed to land-fill. As one of her characters says: “I want to be wafer-thin. So thin that, at some point, I practically disappear. Isn’t that the point? The literal erasure of women?”

AI, AI, Oh… (or how I wrote a hit sitcom with ChatGPT but we’re not talking now) by Will Adamsdale

Will Adamsdale is such an affable, performer that it’s easy to forget that this show isn’t being improvised before our eyes. In this new autobiographical hour he talks about his decision to leave London and move to the west country, in escaping the city he also abandoned all of his networks and any ability to earn a living. It’s a gently engaging show that pretends to be about a technophobe but actually ends up explaining that tech in very simple, humane terms. It’s touring in early 2026. I do worry a little about how quickly he’s going to need to keep reinventing it all to keep pace with the accelerating digital landscape.

Joint by Jay Bernard

This piece isn’t new (it was performed as a monologue, by Indra Ové in 2022) but this was a clever reworking for multiple performers. Abe Jarman and Jadesola Odunjo performed with Indra Ové to bring new phyical perspectives to this often heartbreaking work, weaving narratives and first person accounts to describe the Kafkaesque situations of blind justice at the hands of the ‘Joint Enterprise’ law.

Oracle Song by Melanie Wilson

I’m not sure I really understood this work but I did really enjoy it. Musician Melanie Wilson has been experimenting with AI technology at the Royal Northern College of Music, in a program called Practice & Research in Science & Music (PRiSM). She recorded the sounds of nature and then used AI to extrapolate and interpret, combining those with human voices and gradually building the kaleidoscopic structure of Oracle Song. Apparently, the work seeks to take the audience from a place of climate anxiety and grief into a shared landscape of listening and connection. Maybe that’s exactly what it did for me. At least for an hour.

APRIL

The norwegian theater group Susie Wang.

Burnt Toast – Battersea Arts Centre

I’ve tried so hard to describe this show, from Norwegian experimental theatre-makers Susie Wang, to almost everyone I’ve spoken to since. I can never do it justice.

Imagine David Lynch makes a body horror black comedy and an illusionist does the staging, set in a velvet-lined hotel lobby. Then imagine they dare each other to break taboos about caesarean scar tissue, breast-feeding and drinking the bodily fluids of a baby through a straw.

There was a point where one person loses an arm in a lift-related accident, before climbing in and out of another person. Slutty babies gave birth to smaller babies until a foetus chased a character down a lift-shaft. Bloody, incredible stuff.

MAY

Weer – Soho Theatre Walthamstow

I’m including this Natalie Palamides show for the third year in a row.

I’d seen a very raw, untitled version of this work in 2023, and a still quite experimental version, now called Weer (a work in progress) in the downstairs space at Soho Theatre in Dean Street, last year.

Now the pressure was on because this romantic comedy, where Palamides plays both the male and female leads, was announced as the opening show at their spectacular new thousand seat venue in Walthamstow.

I couldn’t imagine how it could work in that space but it definitely did, she owned the stage (and the seats as she extended her performance into the audience).

As Cog look after their website, I was lucky to be given an advanced tour and was invited to the opening performance. What a treat.

JUNE

LCD Soundsystem – Brixton Academy

Yeh, I know, seeing the same band six times in two weeks is too much. But they really are exceptional. The atmosphere was electric; everyone losing themselves in those hypnotic rhythms. I danced myself clean and literally rang out my t-shirt on the pavement outside each night.

“Look around you, you’re surrounded, it won’t get any better”.

The RSC cast of Hamlet Hail to the Thief.

Hamlet Hail to the Thief – RSC

Radiohead’s album, Hail to the Thief has a special place in my heart. It’s the music I chose when I had an out-of-body MRI moment, and I have an edition of Stanley Donwood’s screenprint, used for the cover artwork, on my wall at home.

With Trump on his throne, pairing that music with this play about power and madness felt entirely logical.

The staging was brilliant, the acting superb, Paul Hilton brought exceptional Nick Cave energy to
Claudius, and the use of a live band (and vocalists) to recreate the music was sublime.

JULY

Efteling Theme Park Resort

As a summer (re)treat I travelled with my family to the fantasy-themed park in Kaatsheuvel, Netherlands.

We stayed in a hotel in the woods (avoiding the cabins around Camp Crystal Lake) that had been decorated for my (and my son’s) birthday, with bunting and cakes. Just lovely.

In the park itself, there were roller-coasters and thrill-seeker rides (the new Danse Macabre is really great) but the most magical area was reserved for fairy tales, some we recognised, many (like Long Neck) we didn’t; each with a purpose-designed area.

My emotional highlight was the cutting-edge (for 1966) animatronic display of De Indische Waterlelies (The Indian Water Lilies).

It’s a truly international affair and maybe a bit racist. But it oozes charm and lost innocence.

Housed in a vaguely Thai-inspired temple, the story, written by Queen Fabiola of Belgium, is about seven stars, turned to fairies by a witch, who emerge from water lilies to dance to an aquatic band under the moonlight. Introductory music is from Peruvian singer Yma Sumac, followed by Afrikaan Beat by the German, Bert Kaempfert.

It was life-affirming to see generations of people singing and dancing to what must be an institution to their families; it felt like every Dutch visitor knew the tune by heart and came there as a kind of pilgrimage.

AUGUST

Edinburgh Fringe + Festival

I had a wonderful time at this year’s Fringe. I’ve written about it elsewhere so won’t try to repeat it all here.

My headlines:

I loved seeing Elf Lyons’ Raven show so much that I abandoned other plans and spent two days pressing ‘refresh’ to get tickets to see her other two Bird Trilogy shows.

It was one of two trilogies of shows I saw, although James Rowland did his consecutively in the same afternoon.

For the second Fringe in a row, my favourite show was a durational dance work.

The top ten (or 14 depending on your counting) of my 40+ shows…

1. The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave
2. Julia Masli: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
3. Rob Auton: CAN (An Hour-Long Story)
4. Thanks for Being Here from Ontroerend Goed
5. Elf Lyons: The Bird Trilogy
6. Philosophy of the World from In Bed With My Brother
7. James Rowland’s Songs of the Heart Trilogy
8. Tim Key: Loganberry
9. Lost Lear
10. Lachlan Werner: WonderTwunk

Gorillaz residency at Copper Box Arena

Day -1. House of Kong exhibition (28th August)

I’d been quite sniffy about this exhibition. You basically had to buy a ticket for it in order to get a ‘pre-sale’ code and any chance for tickets to the series of live gigs that marked the band’s 25th anniversary.

I really shouldn’t have been so sceptical. It was brilliantly put together with deliberately detached staff adding to the feeling of abandoned other-worldliness.

We entered in groups of maybe a dozen and donned headphones that became our surround-sound guides as we moved from room to room. Narration was by Kate Bryan and Ben Mendelsohn which gave it a proper art-gallery retrospective feel.

Through crafted sets (including Murdoc’s Winnebago, a stained glass chapel and a full recording studio) our mission was to find the lost property office and hand in a VHS tape. We succeeded and were rewarded with a rapid-fire montage through the past 25 years, followed by a teaser for a new album.

I suspect their original vision had been even grander (with room for food-halls near the end) but it didn’t need it. Even the gift shop was impressively stocked and well considered.

Day 1. Gorillaz (29th August)

Walking onto what must usually be the basketball court in this sports arena, the place was buzzing with excitement. Kid Koala played a DJ set to welcome the crowds (and played throughout the main set).

I think we were all a little nervous when the gig started and it seemed like they might be faithfully recreating the first gigs where they performed behind a screen. But the screen lifted, the band appeared and the place erupted. It was especially exciting to have the original ‘Noodle’, Miho Hatori, performing on several of the songs.

It was great gig but the band (very few of whom were in the original line-up) including singer Damon, didn’t feel 100% invested in the way I’ve seen them before.

Day 2. Demon Days (30th August)

As we arrived for this second gig, De La Soul’s Maseo was on the decks. His passion for music, all music, brought a very different energy to this second show.

God knows why Damon came dressed as a priest (in a black wig). Maybe it was because they performed the title track with the London Community Gospel Choir for the first time in two decades.

They also brought on a full kids choir to perform Dirty Harry. Seeing that on a TV show was what first convinced me this was such a special band. So I got proper goose-bumps. And then Pos and Maseo (from De La Soul) came on for Feel Good Inc and took the roof off.

Day 3. Plastic Beach (2nd September)

The Plastic Beach album really felt like the time when Gorillaz found their feet as a live band. This gig felt like they were back, reliving those moments, with almost every song featuring a new collaborator: the band were joined by Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Mos Def, Gruff Rhys and De La Soul, Yukimi from Little Dragon, (original bassist) Paul Simonon, and The Syrian National Orchestra For Arabic Music (for the anthemic White Flag, played for the first time in 15 years).

The evening ended with everyone on stage. A hugely emotional moment with Jamie Hewlet pushed to the fore to receive well deserved appreciation from us all.

Day 4. Mystery Show (3rd September)

Months in advance, this really had been a mystery but, by the time we’d got to the gig and had our phones sealed in security pouches, we were pretty certain we were about to witness an all new album.

My son had seen the forums speculating that the new album was influenced by Eastern philosophies and music of the Indian subcontinent. He listed several musicians and rappers who were rumoured to be working with the band.

As a throwaway comment, I said I wouldn’t be happy unless the exceptional sitar player, Anoushka Shankar was there (as her father, Ravi Shankar had been for the final days of The Beatles). Incredibly, that’s exactly what happened. Anoushka Shankar wasn’t just a guest star, she was part of the band, through the whole gig/album.

The new album, that we now know is called The Mountain, is wonderful.

Once again there are many unusual collaborators who were all there for this gig – including Sparks, IDLES, Johnny Marr and Omar Souleyman.

There was no encore. There was no need. It was the end of a perfect run of unique shows.

SEPTEMBER

Stefano Ancora, Bea Bidault, Kath Duggan and Solène Weinachter

Anatomy of Survival – Shoreditch Town Hall

How do our brains work? What coping methods do we employ to shield ourselves from hurt? What shatters this shield and tips us into violence or self-harm? This dance-based work explored these huge topics brilliantly.

It began with the simplest of lectures from an actor – a sine-wave of emotion with certain people’s bandwidth unable to contain the top or bottom of the emotional ups and down.

Then two dancers, our actor and a drummer (all identically dressed) played out the scenario of a woman ordering coffee, her aggressive shattering of social convention when she felt ignored and then ridiculed by the barista, and then the reactions of everyone else in the coffee shop.

I’ve thought a lot about this show since then. It was a better explanation of human psychology than I’ve ever heard or read.

I wish everyone could see it but I know they won’t because the words ‘contemporary dance’ describe a world that sounds like it’s not for the likes of most people. That’s such a shame; people deserve to see this sort of great live performance.

OCTOBER

Mermaid Chunky: Moina Moin and Freya Tate.

Marmaid Chunky – ICA

The ICA has been programming brilliantly weird music acts this year. As part of their In The Round season (using the venue’s 360° spatial soundsystem, d&b Soundscape) they invited one of my favourites.

To quote from their website: Mermaid Chunky are an audio visual duo made up of artists Freya Tate and Moina Moin. Bathing in milkmaid serenity and improvised chaos, the duo boast of pumping trance rhythms, sad Easter time chicks and seriously arousing sax solos.

Performing mostly from their new album, slif slaf slof it felt like the pair couldn’t quite believe they were there – ‘they asked us’ said Moina as a dance troupe of friends with painted faces and flowing Midsommar robes, moved amongst us like the opening titles from Tales of the Unexpected.

Adding to the perfect silliness, support came from a comedic couple, staging the world snail racing championship with human snails and four-foot lettuce leaves.

NOVEMBER

The Unthanks at Foundling Museum

The Unthanks – Foundling Museum

I could not wish for a more magical opportunity than to see and hear (with my mum) The Unthanks perform in such a beautiful, intimate setting.

This was part of an anniversary tour of special places from their 20-year career. It meant we got lots of highlight from their back-catalogue, including many I’ve not heard in a very long time.

The only downside was that they couldn’t perform their usual clog-dancing, for fear of dislodging the oil paintings or damaging the historic artefacts.

Lambrini Girls – O2 Forum Kentish Town

I stumbled across Brighton-based Lambrini Girls, via Spotify, a year or so ago. Their Lads, Lads, Lads single was the hugely energetic highlight of my ‘sweary women’ playlist. The algorithm did its job and I excitedly booked for the London launch of the tour, supporting their first album, Who Let The Dogs Out (no question mark, apparently).

The event reminded me of my favourite anarcho-punk gigs from the mid-80s. Politically charged, profane and aggressive, yet always respectful, thoughtful and inclusive.
“What do we do if someone falls over in the moshpit?”
“Pick them back up!”

Of course I stood to the side; I’m too old for that game anymore. It gave me a great view of the action and meant that singer Phoebe Lunny pushed past me to climb the stairs and perch precariously on the balcony, conducting the crowd to form the Forum’s biggest ever moshpit.

And for their finale this band of societal misfits brought on the incredible Peaches to perform her remixed version of their single Cuntology 101. Exceptional stuff.

DECEMBER

Elf Lyons at the end of Raven.

Elf Lyons’ Raven – Soho Theatre

As I’ve written earlier, I became so enamoured by Elf Lyons’ Raven that I booked to see both her other Bird Trilogy shows at the Edinburgh Fringe (and saw Horses in the appropriately named Canterbury on Halloween). So it was fitting that this was my final cultural outing before bolting myself away for Christmas.

Actually it was also the final ever time she will perform this deeply personal, emotionally draining and physically exhausting work, first performed in 2022. It felt very special to be there and was a more than fitting end to my year.

As well as the outstanding show above, I was at many other, mostly great, events in 2025…

Cinema

I’ve really gone off going to the cinema. I can’t stand the behaviour of other people, which I realise is my own problem rather than theirs.

The only film I saw at a normal screening was the excellent Australian supernatural folk horror film, Bring Her Back directed by Danny and Michael Philippou, Properly disturbing and terrifyingly believable stuff.

Audiences are different at the London Film Festival and I managed to squeeze in ten films during the two weeks in mid October: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Bugonia, Good Boy, The Thing With Feathers, Broken English, Frankenstein, & Sons, Die My Love, Hamnet, 100 Nights of Hero.

My favourite was a low budget retelling of Hamlet with Riz Ahmed’s in the title role, set in and around the South Asian community of South London. The story translated brilliantly and of course Morfydd Clark was outstanding as Ophelia.

Television

I’m not sure why but I also seem to have watched far fewer films on TV this year. These are the only ones I can remember: Kelly’s Hero / Escape Room / Emilia Perez / Anora / Marnie / A Good Person / Sneakers / Nightmare Ally / Cleaner / Fountainhead / A man called Otto / Twisters / Hit Man / Muppets Christmas Carol / Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

I have watched a lot of telly. I made a special effort but I’ve only bothered noting shows where I’ve watched a whole series or more; I dip in and out of plenty more. Don’t count any of it as a recommendation, as you’ll see, I watch lots of terrible stuff.

Drama

MacGyver 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 (AppleTV) / Patience (Channel 4) / White Lies (More4) / Unforgotten 6  / Missing You (Netflix) / The Agency (Paramount+) / High Potential1 & 2 (Disney) / Toxic Town (Netflix) / Black Mirror 7 (Netflix) / Bergerac (U) / Reacher 1 & 2 (Amazon) / The Last of Us 2 / Doctor Who (BBC) / I. Jack Wright (U, Alibi) / Before We Die 1 & 2 / The Studio (Apple) / The Trouble with Maggie Cole (Netflix)  / Department Q (Netflix) / Suspicion (ITVX) / Adolescence (Netflix) / The Gold 1 & 2 (BBC) / Finding Alice (ITV) / Karen Pirie 1 & 2 (ITV) / Departure 1 & 2 (Netflix) / Mudtown (Alibi) / Slow Horses 4 (Apple) /  The West Wing 1,2,3,4,5,6 & 7 (More4) / The Coroner 1 & 2 (U + Alibi) / Spooks 1,2,3,4,5 & 6 (U)  / The Good Fight 5 & 6 (U)* / Art Detectives (U + Drama) / Wild Cards 1 (Paramount).

Comedy

The Cockfields 1 & 2 (U) /  Amandaland (BBC iPlayer)/ Only Murders in the Building 5 (Disney) / The Full Monty (Disney) / The Residence (Netflix) / The Change 1 & 2 (C4) / Big Boys 1, 2 & 3 (Channel 4) / Elsbeth 1 & 2 / Mitchell and Web are not helping (C4) / The Paper (Sky)

Reality & quizzes

Landscape Artist of the Year / University Challenge / Only Connect / The Apprentice / The Apprentice: You’re fired / Gardener’s World / Monty Don’s British Gardens / Celebrity Bear Hunt / Great Pottery Throw Down / Tempting Fortune / Taskmaster / Our Welsh Chapel Dream / Genius Game / 1% Club / Gogglebox 25 & 26 / Celebrity Gogglebox / Noel Edmonds’ Kiwi Adventure / The Jury: Murder Trial / The Great British Sewing Bee / Romesh: Can’t Knock the Hustle / Wheeler Dealers / Bangers & Cash / Bangers & Cash: Restoring Classics 

Documentary

Wonderland: Science Fiction in the Atomic Age (Sky Arts) / Shifty (BBC) / Inside Our Minds (BBC)

*I would definitely recommend The Good Fight. On the surface it’s a regular legal drama, spin-off from The Good Wife. Underneath there’s an undercurrent of social and political commentary that you rarely see on TV, and they maintain that astuteness for all 6 series. It’s been difficult to find the final couple of series in the UK, since Channel 4 dropped it so I was delighted to find it streamed on U. But don’t be fooled into thinking the spin-off, Elspeth might be as good. It isn’t. Although it is silly/funny with guest stars in every episode if you like that sort of thing.

Music

Rhian Teasdale with Wet Leg.

I didn’t get tickets for Oasis or Radiohead but I did see a lot of great live music this year. As well as the multiple gigs from Gorillaz and LCD Soundsystem, and the one-off spectacles of Lambrini Girls and Mermaid Chunky…

My first gig of the year was at the Royal Festival Hall. I was there for Baroquebusters, a fun romp through the hits of Handel and others, from Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

A week later I was back there for a very different kind of show. Asian Dub Foundation performing a live soundtrack to the ever more resonant film, La Haine. I’d seen this collaboration in its first outing at the Barbican in 2001 and loved it so much I tried to see it at the Queen Elizabeth Hall a few years later (ask me about that cock-up next time you see me). I was so pleased to get to revisit it. It is every bit as good as I remember.

Snapped Ankles at the Forum.

In May I was at the NME’s ‘Best Small Venue’, The Forum in Tunbridge Wells. The enigmatic and always masked Snapped Ankles promised Hard Times Furious Dancing. And they delivered. It was lots of fun.

A fortnight later I was at Brixton Academy to see the newly reinvented Wet Leg. I loved the harder sound and aggressive attitude. They performed mostly new material from the then unreleased second album, Moisturizer. It was great.

I saw several other powerful female-led performances this year.

The ever brilliant Self Esteem has somehow performed her Complicated Woman show scores of times amongst many other projects. I caught it at Brixton Academy (with guest Moonchild Sanelly and support from Nadine Shah). It was empowering, mostly inclusive and a little bit man-hatey, which I guess is fair enough.

Albertine Sarges (and her band) brought a more joyous, silly energy to the Lexington in Islington. She’s an engaging performer with clever, funny anecdotes and witty songs to match. Catch her if you can.

Back, South of the river, I was at the iconic punk venue, the New Cross Inn, to see the whirlwinds of Japanese energy, The Let’s Gos. These three women belted out covers of punk classics and seemed sometimes overwhelmed to be doing it in London.

In June, I really should have been spending my time at intellectually challenging lectures during the inaugural SXSW London. But I got bored with the queues and lack of new thinking and instead used my pass to access non-stop gigs from brilliant new (to me) bands. I wrote about my favourites in the Cog journal (linked above).

Talking of ‘new’ bands, I continued to see Oxford band, Suspire whenever I could. This year I saw them in the tiny basement of The Library Pub in their home town, and at The Stag’s Head in Hoxton and at the legendary (and recently refurbished) The Water Rats. They get better every time.

Dance

The all female cast of Thikra.

At Sadler’s Wells I really enjoyed the dance interpretation of Quadrophenia. I suspect it fell between the stools of different audiences. It had no vocals which was a little odd, and it was too dancey for fans of The Who, and not dancey enough for dance fans. But I love that film (and album) and really admired the ambition and interpretation of this show.

I was back later in the year for Thikra: Night of Remembering, the latest show from Akram Khan company (working with visual artist Manal AlDowayan), performed by an all female cast, combining Bharatanatyam and contemporary choreography. Apparently it draws visual reference from the landscapes and mythology of AlUla (now in Saudi Arabia). There were witches and resurrections and lots of stuff that I didn’t understand. But I do know I loved it.

I saw two other shows, both at Battersea Arts Centre, that might loosely be described as dance, as much as other things.

Lost Dog returned to the venue with their staging of Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me). In it Sharif Afifi plays all the characters and creates all the scenes through movement, dance and a single chair. He combines his character’s life struggles and creation with the epic scale of Milton’s all consuming saga of good, evil, life and death.

Wet Mess is a drag performer with a lot going for them, not least that their stage persona is hugely photogenic and gets them the cover of many a listing. In the show Testo, they use many of the drag tropes (including catwalk, voguing and lip syncing) along with inflatable phalluses, strobe lighting and banging audio. I’d be interested to see them in other guises, or maybe I already have and didn’t recognise them without the chequer-board make up and devil horn hair.

Immersive

TomYumSim: Simone French and Tom Halls.

I think I only experienced two shows that could legitimately be called immersive, in 2025.

Storehouse promised much, perhaps too much. Producers Sage & Jester (with Punchdrunk heritage) secured a huge storage facility, on the banks of the Thames in Deptford, and transformed it with amazing scene-setting and criss-crossed walkways. Maybe we were visiting the present from the future; the timeline didn’t make a lot of sense to me and neither did much of the story or my part on it. I very much admired the ambition but didn’t entirely understand the execution.

Trainwreck was on a very different scale. Performance duo TomYumSim played with themes of massively overhyped and wildly underwhelming immersive shows. Staged at Theatre Deli, we were promised the ride of a lifetime before being wheeled down corridors on office chairs. The duo used ChatGPT to write a musical with each of us performing backing vocals, dancing in tinsel or throwing feathers into a fan. At the end they had used AI to animate my LinkedIn profile photo so I appeared to be giving them a resoundingly positive review. Watch the publicity material for their performances later in the year and you’ll see me, blindfolded by a scarf, playing an imaginary piano.

Musicals

The cast of Into the Woods at Bridge Theatre.

I don’t really like musicals. Well, that’s what I tell people. What I mean is that I don’t really understand the artiface and the very particular style of Broadway/West End singing. But I’m not averse to giving the genre a go.

I saw a very studenty show about players being sucked into a computer game that lived up to every expectation at the Edinburgh Fringe so I won’t even name that one.

I had been looking forward to seeing Sing Street at Lyric Hammersmith. I had hoped it would be a faithful recreation of the surprisingly good film set in the pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland. The story was quite faithful, perhaps to its detriment – who wants another miserable story of 80s poverty? But the music had all been updated with boy-band sensibilities. It was frothy pop that fell a little flat to me but what do I know, people around me were whooping and screaming for more.

I was also intrigued at the prospect of seeing Sondheim’s final work, Here We Are at National Theatre. The all-star cast included Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), Jane Krakowski, Martha Plimpton and Denis O’Hare (The Good Fight) alongside Rory Kinnear and many others. I guess it was a satire about the 1% and the end of empire or late stage capitalism. As is so often the case, I kept thinking – why are they singing this? It would be so much more effective as a comedy drama.

But that wasn’t the case for Sondheim’s early work, Into the Woods. I saw the production of that at Bridge Theatre as a pre-Xmas panto alternative and enjoyed every minute. Oh yes I did.

Comedy

The messy end of a chaotic show with Paul Whitehouse, Dr. Mine Conkbayir and Heston Blumenthal.

Beyond the Fringe I don’t often see a lot of what I’d call traditional comedy, although I do see a lot of funny shows. Here are three that I’ve ring-fenced for the sake of categorisation.

I’m confident that most people would call Stewart Lee a comedian even if plenty don’t find him funny. I think he’s brilliant. Trying out a new show at Leicester Sqaure Theatre, the big conceit of Stewart Lee vs the Man Wulf is that he’s dressed as a Werewolf before stripping off to talk about the real monsters of the stand-up scene, those of the ‘Netflix specials’. I’d booked very early so I was front and centre – the perfect place to see the sweat dripping off him as he sat in his pants. That was in the cold of early January. God knows how he coped with the heat when he took it on a UK Summer tour.

I was back at Leicester Square Theatre for the live show of the podcast, I’m ADHD! No You’re Not. I’m counting it as comedy as it was/is hosted by Paul Whitehouse and his partner Dr. Mine Conkbayir. I was there with my sister and her ADHD diagnosis. She loved the chaos, confrontation and confusion of it all, I wasn’t so sure. It felt particularly odd to me to have Heston Blumenthal as a guest when he was evidently still balancing his meds after being sectioned a year before. Is that entertaining?

I thought I’d struck lucky when I booked for one of James Acaster‘s small venue WIP shows in the Summer. It was my first time at Soho Boulevard; I could have chosen from half a dozen small London venues in the run. James Acaster came on as a James Acaster tribute act, complaining about James Acaster’s lack of exposure damaging his income. But before he could settle into the routine James Acaster got distracted and started talking about right-wing flags on lampposts and left wing political disarray, and ran out of time to circle back to the material of the actual show. To paraphrase Stewart Lee: ‘Was it funny?’ ‘No, but I agreed the fuck out of it.’

Outside London

The cast of Housemates on stage at Sherman Theatre.

This time last year I realised that I’d been far too London-centric. I vowed to at least try to see more outside the capital.

In February I managed to arrange a meeting in Nottingham that allowed me to catch their production of Dennis Kelly’s chillingly written one-woman play, Girls & Boys. I saw the original production at Royal Court with Carey Mulligan in 2018 so it was fascinating to compare the two. Aisling Loftus was equally excellent in this version.

Later in the year I was back for a matinee staging of the new comedy, The Last Stand of Mrs. Mary Whitehouse. Maxine Peake was of course amazing but it was Samuel Barnett who stole the show, playing all the other characters. It was brilliantly funny but I wonder how they could ever recreate it with other actors.

Also in February, I was in Cardiff for the gloriously good-time ’70s-based new musical, Housemates, performed by neurodivergent and neurotypical actor-musicians. It is the story of friendship between a Cardiff student and a resident in a facility used to house people with learning disabilities. They become housemates and kick-start a movement that led to the closure of all similar facilities. It was all the more poignant as this story began in the campus next to Sherman Theatre.

Despite not getting home until 1am, the following day I travelled to Leeds Playhouse for the matinee of House Party. This was a Gen Z reworking Strindberg’s Miss Julie, a big collaborative touring show (with Headlong and Frantic Assembly involved).

In March, Belgrade Theatre in Coventry was my destination for Driftwood by Tim Foley, presented by ThickSkin and Pentabus, a cracking two-hander about friends returning home for a funeral.

And in April I was in Manchester for their production of Mike Leigh’s brilliant Abigail’s Party at Royal Exchange Theatre. Kym Marsh brought a fresh take to Beverly, in this excellently staged version that had been transported north by Director Natalie Abrahami.

Closer to home, I visited three venues in Canterbury during the year.

Marlowe Theatre’s first full-scale production of their own was the story of the Mitford Sisters, titled Party Girls. It was a great show, jumping back and forth through time, with the sisters’ frailties and political affiliations exposed and retold.

At Gulbenkian Arts Centre I saw a different kind of jumping through history via Stan’s Cafe’s Time Critical. Using a competition chess clock, two participants each talked about each year from 1991 (when the company were founded), one noted world-historic events the other noting key events from the company’s story. 34 years in 68 minutes. It felt particularly special to me as Cog was founded in the same year and we have followed quite similar trajectories.

My third Canterbury outing was to the Malthouse Theatre, a beautifully restored building which seems to be part of The King’s School. There I saw my forth Elf Lyons show of the year, her Sky Arts Awards-winning show, Horses. The blurb tells us it’s a show written by a horse and performed by Treacle. By the end, many members of the audience were trotting around the stage, leaping jumps. There were also some nice call backs to other shows (or I guess, life), including self-help tapes about horse riding and escaping from wells.

Art

Unplugged by Laure Prouvost.

Not far from Canterbury, my favourite art outing of the year was to the ever-excellent Folkestone Triennial, How Lies the Land. It was perhaps not on the scale of previous years but there were some great stand-out pieces, including this three-headed, mutant bird, by Laure Prouvost, to the side of the harbour approach, titled: Unplugged.

I guess it’s a sign of how old I now am (or how long it takes to become an influential curator) that most of my other ‘art’ outings were exhibitions devoted to revisiting my youth…

At National Portrait Gallery, The Face Magazine: Culture Shift showed just how brilliant and influential that magazine has been. Back in the 1980s I had a subscription because I was obsessed with the Neville Brody design. He barely got a look in but I did remember almost every portrait and fashion photo shoot, now blown up to gallery size and given due reverence.

At Tate, a similar treatment was given to the ephemeral life of Leigh Bowery!. In a superb exhibition they seem to have collected every artefact and ridiculous throw-away costume from his early clubbing days as well as the more serious ‘outfits’ that are now so iconic (and heavily featured in the pages of The Face).

Across at Barbican Art Gallery, many of those same themes had been picked up again in their Dirty Looks exhibition. I did find it very difficult to take seriously the idea that this was a serious exhibition about recycling and sustainability. It felt a lot like the petrochemical industry was telling us about the recycling of plastic straws. But I am sure I’m just being cynical and the show sewed the seeds of future thinking about waste-free fashion.

Theatre in London

Samuel Edward-Cook’s image, projected onto a screen in front of the stage before Manhunt.

I saw more than 50 other shows that might loosely be described as ‘theatre’.

Learning my lesson from previous disappointments, I saw hardly anything in what might be described as the West End but I did see two at the Wyndham’s Theatre:

As the concluding companion to the compendium TV series, Inside Number 9 Stage/Fright was must-see. Of course it was great. Imagine the sense of achievement those two must feel at such an accomplished body of work.

I also really enjoyed the Daniel Evans’s directed show, Born With Teeth, written by Liz Duffy Adams and starring Ncuti Gatwa as Christopher Marlowe and Edward Bluemel as William Shakespeare. Energetic and fizzing with sexual charge, the show made little sense or historic pretence but it was lots of fun.

Daniel Evans gives me a good starting point to begin my tour of the capital…

Evans was in the original performance of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis at Royal Court Theatre. Marking its 25th anniversary that original cast (Daniel Evans, Jo McInnes and Madeleine Potter) were back at the Court reprising those roles. There are no cast descriptions for this free-form work, tackling a moment of psychotic breakdown, so it can be performed by anyone. In some ways it lacked the spark of 20 somethings being overwhelmed by the sheer effort of existing. But it was poignant to see contemporaries, now grown-up, considering that Kane had died by suicide before that original performance. I was perhaps a little distracted as Michael Palin sat two rows ahead of me, reflected in the mirrored backdrop of the staging.

Also upstairs at Royal Court I saw the thought provoking sci-fi story, More Life. Technology allows a woman’s memories and essence to be brought back through a host body. The play tackles many of the questions posed by gothic horror, catapulted into a transhumanist future.

Downstairs I saw the inexplicable play about Raoul Moat, Manhunt. Written and directed by Robert Icke, who I guess is now so in-demand he can do whatever he wants. We learn about the systems that conspired to turn a happy lad into a psychopathic cop-killer. It was a polished piece of theatre but didn’t add much to my understanding about toxic masculinity.

Also in West London, at Lyric Hammersmith Theatre.

The English Touring Theatre production of Macbeth 25 was a fun, modern retelling that didn’t quite strike the right notes for me.

Ghosts was a terrific reworking of Ibsen from the Director/writing pairing of Rachel O’Riordan and Gary Owen’s. Callum Scott Howells plays the naive, spoiled and promiscuous Oz. The Rivals star Victoria Smurfit is his mother, covering for the sexual transgressions of her dead husband in a desperate desire to maintain his legacy and lifestyle that follows.

Marriage Material was a much gentler show. Sathnam Sanghera’s tale of Asian family loyalties and sisterly love, in the Black Country of the 1980s, was charming and engaging. And it was wonderful to see the theatre filled with Asian couples and families, seeing their story on stage in ways that rarely happen.

Just down the road I was amazed at the transformation of Riverside Studios which I evidently hadn’t visited for a long time. The new space felt hugely welcoming and relaxed. I was there for Interview with Paten Hughes and Robert Sean Leonard. There was a lot to like about this influencer inspired tale; the acting was especially great.

The Fairy Temple, as a part of Tête à Tête.

Heading more centrally, I visited The Cockpit for The Fairy Temple, as a part of Tête à Tête – a forward-thinking Opera festival. It was a gloriously amateur evening, celebrating the  work on the 17th century lyricist and Anglican cleric Robert Herrick.

Close to the West End I visited one of my favourite tiny venues, Jermyn Street Theatre for Lessons on Revolution, a great two-hander that compared ’60s anti-apartheid protests and political interference at London School of Economics to today’s debates around Palestine, climate activism and student housing.

At Soho Theatre (Dean Street) it was great to see a run of new theatre programming towards the end of this year. In the main space I saw Little Brother which was a heartbreakingly realistic account of suicidal ideation and how a mental health crisis ripples through everyone who is connected. Upstairs, Period Parrrty was about the Tamil tradition of celebrating a girl’s coming of age, and how that plays out with emigrant and non-binary communities.

Bryony Kimmings and the cast of woodland characters, volunteers from the audience.

Soho Theatre Walthamstow is so far away (for me) that it makes a mockery of my geographical run around town. But it is very easy to get to on the Victoria line so I’ll add here that I visited again in October. I was there for the specially commissioned new work, Bog Witch, from Bryony Kimmings. This typically autobiographical work is a natural follow-up to her I’m a Phoenix, Bitch show where she talked through the breakdown she’d suffered when first moving to the country. Now, with a new (eco-warrier) partner she is once again, far from the flat-white lifestyle, welly-deep in rafia and folklore. It was lovely to see her so happy.

Around the corner (from Dean Street) I sat at the negotiating table, between the delegates at the RSC version of the Kyoto summit – fake Angela Merkel asked my opinion more than once; I hope I made better choices than the real politicians.

I saw three shows at Donmar Warehouse, two of which have featured heavily in other people’s best shows of the year. None of them were near that for me.

Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig played aged mother and adult daughter in new play, Backstroke, written and directed by Anna Mackmin.

Matthew Dunster directed the 30th anniversary production of Patrick Marber’s renowned play about addiction and masculinity, Dealer’s Choice. It was great but really did feel like a period piece to me.

Described by The Telegraph as “One of the cultural events of the year”, Intimate Apparel is about a seamstress in 1905’s New York. Samira Wiley was terrific but I struggled to connect with it.

Alan Fielden, Ben Kulvichit, Clara Potter-Sweet, Tim Cape and Jemima Yong.

Heading a little northward, I’ve never seen a bad show at New Diorama Theatre, 2025 was no exception…

Container, was a multi-layered, vocal work written by Alan Fielden and performed with Ben Kulvichit & Clara Potter-Sweet (Emergency Chorus), Jemima Yong and Tim Cape. There was humour, horror, stop-start hints of Laurie Anderson and Yoko Ono, overlapping narratives, live music and polyphonic sound to explore alternative treatments of text, voice, and storytelling. I liked it so much I sought out another great show from Emergency Chorus at Edinburgh Fringe.

The Mosinee Project was concerned with a moment of cold war American history where a small Wisconsin town unknowingly took part in an experiment to see how people would react to a Russian invasion. I’ll be looking out for more work by this new company, Counterfactual.

Angus Cooper, Tanya Reynolds, Siena Kelly, Liv Hill and Adam Hugill.

Further north at the Almeida Theatre in Islington I saw four equally great plays, all with very different sensibilities.

Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist satire, Rhinoceros concerns the inhabitants of a provincial French town turning into the mono-horned monsters. Brilliantly staged and perfectly pitched I found it especially pertinent at a time when we can all hear the rumbling of easy answers and dangerous doctrines.

A month later I was back for 1536, a wonderful play about working-class Essex girls (including Tanya Reynolds) gossiping about the behaviour of King Henry towards Anne Boleyn, and what that might mean for them as they deal with the violent misogyny closer to home. It would probably have made my top picks, if I’d not seen the equally brilliant The Bounds which covered similar historic ground last year.

Eugene O’Neill’s play didn’t particularly speak to me but A Moon for the Misbegotten was a great chance to see acting a-listers Michael Shannon and Ruth Wilson, directed by Rebecca Frecknall.

My final Almeida show of 2025 was Romans. In Alice Birch’s new play we follow the three (Roman) brothers through an impossibly long timeline of abusive relationships and toxic masculinity, culminating in overlapping scenes that seem to ridicule all modern facets of what some men think it now means to be a man.

The cast of Dear Martin.

Heading East I spent a fair amount of time at Arcola Theatre, because I was helping them with a new website and because they continue to commission and stage interesting work.

Tarantula is a terrific monologue work from Philip Ridley. Georgie Henley was great, conveying the twisting story of her character whose first kiss led to tragedy and a lifetime of therapy.

A week later I was back for the press night of Mark Jagasia’s new play. The Double Act is set in a seaside guest house as a one-time comedy partnership is reunited for a final performance to save one’s reputation and bring the other out of a medically enforced retirement. It felt deliberately of a period but leant a little too hard on tropes for my liking.

I was soon back for Dear Martin, a comedic show about a charismatic serial killer and the unlikely friendship he strikes up with one of those people who write and visit serial killers. It was fun and funny and sharp enough to be original and clever.

I also revisited Shoreditch Town Hall for ThisEgg: A Little Inquest Into What We Are All Doing Here. It is about the cancellation of a sex-education show (and its performer) before it got out of the rehearsal room. Staged in part like an interrogation and later with the spotlights on us, Josie Dale-Jones examines the evidence questions herself and finds us all lacking. She attempts to be balanced to admit mistakes but can’t understand the genuine rage of strangers or the lack of support from friends. It made me consider how hard it is to live alongside people who are always certain they are right.

Mina Trapp from Frau Trapp.

Back into the city, Barbican Centre continued to be one of my favourite venues.

In their Pitt space I saw more experimental work (as well as the four Fuel Fest works).

La Pendue: La Manékine was part of the London Mime Festival. A single performer, coupled with a one-man band created a distinctive staging for  this story of a miller who makes a deal with the devil, unwittingly promising his daughter. You might think it was a children’s show until an axe appears and you remember it is based on the Grimm Brothers’, The Girl Without Hands.

Five Lines was a beautiful construction of a show, with tiny characters, playing out their dystopian story on a set to the scale of a train-set. Described as micro-cinema, the action is acted, filmed and projected above the Frau Trapp puppet masters. The story is set in a climate collapsed future where the people trade societal freedoms for personal security and the constant promise of jam tomorrow. I loved the hand-crafted, photocopied and balsa-wood aesthetic of it all.

The hungry ghost of Chinese tradition is a ghoul with an insatiable appetite. In Elisabeth Gunawan’s play, Prayers For A Hungry Ghost, twin sisters experience very different immigrant experiences after their father brings them from Hong Kong to America. We hear from the less ‘successful’ twin sister as she gives in to her own demons and becomes more monstrous and ghoulish, or maybe that’s just how she saw herself, according to the testimony of her sister. Maybe the show was about eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

Stage hands move the set of Łukasz Twarkowski’s ROHTKO.

Upstairs in the Barbican Theatre I saw four very different shows.

Another highlight of the London Mime Festival, Plexus Polaire: Moby Dick was exactly what you’d expect. A brilliant, large-as-life retelling of the story of Ahab by Ismael, featuring seven actors, fifty puppets and a whale-sized whale. A wonder to behold.

Cate Blanchett reputedly said she was giving up acting after her five-week run in The Seagull. Maybe she was tired or maybe she felt she’d reached her peak. She was very engaging as a once illustrious actress in one of Chekov’s plays about tiresome individuals who are all in love with the wrong people. The cast was incredible (also including Tom Burke, Emma Corrin, Jason Watkins and Tanya Reynolds), the fading summer staging was cleverly atmospheric with a corn field for characters to hide in, and Zachary Hart got to sing several Billy Bragg songs and ride around the stage on a quad-bike.

Stephen Rea in Krapp’s Last Tape.

After that huge cast of characters I returned to the theatre for Becket’s one-man play Krapp’s Last Tape. Vicky Featherstone’s direction places Krapp in an expressionist set, Stephen Rea appears to have the colour drained from him as he engages in sarcastic mocking of his own naivety, listening back to recordings he has made each year. I’ve not seen this very short play before and enjoyed it very much; I’m looking forward to seeing Gary Oldman’s version later in the year.

In total contrast, in almost every respect, ROHTKO was my second Łukasz Twarkowski show of the year. Four hours long and on a massive scale with neon-lit sets, wheeled across the stage, cameras follow the overlapping action and hidden detail which is projected above for us all to see. Performed in Latvian, English, Chinese and Polish with English surtitles, the play is set across multiple continents and timelines and deals with existential questions around the nature and value of art and the legitimacy of authorship.

Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves on the End set.

Crossing the Thames, I somehow managed to be at the final three performances of Rufus Norris’ programme at the Dorfman.

The Estate starred the always excellent Adeel Akhtar as a politician who accidentally finds his way to power and is absolutely corrupted along the way. I was overly excited to see Humphrey Ker (who I recognised from Made in Wrexham) appear as a representation of political king-makers.

It was a treat to see Juliet Stevenson star in David Lan’s new play, The Land of the Living, directed by Stephen Daldry. It was slick, accomplished and engaging but it was a depressing story (and all too relevant to in Russia/Ukraine) about children being kidnapped into the hands of invading Nazi powers, and what happens to those children when the fighting is over.

Ironically the final show of the run was called End. Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves play now middle-class, Crouch Endy, aging ravers (he a House DJ, she a novelist) who are having the difficult conversations about their life and his terminal diagnosis. Apparently it is the final part of a trilogy from David Eldridge (Beginning, Middle). It was tender and moving (Directed by Rachel O’Riordan) but all a little too close to real life for me to say I enjoyed it.

I also saw two shows at the Lyttelton as part of Norris’ final season.

Alterations, written by Michael Abbensetts’ gives a sometimes comic take on the Guyanese experience of 1970s London. Set largely in a tailor’s shop during a long night, trying to complete a large order to an impossible deadline, there is plenty of room for metaphorically cut cloth, frayed edges and clashing colours. Directed by Lynette Linton, modern figures emerge from the darkness, giving glimpses of the influence the Windrush generation.

Inter Alia is, as all the publicity will rightly tell you, from the same writing and directing team as Prima Facie. It deals with similar topics of consent and sexual assault but from a very different perspective. Rosamund Pike is a Crown Court judge with a feminist reputation, boundless energy, great friends and a happy home. She is living the dream and singing karaoke when her son is arrested and she wakes into a nightmare of conflicted loyalty and ethical dilemma.

I was also at the first National Theatre show under the new artistic direction of Indhu Rubasingham.

Bacchae felt like a statement of intent; powerful women of colour, dancing for joy and rapping their intros. It was huge-scale, Mad Max Euripedes; the polar opposite to the solo, male, movement-based version I’d seen in Edinburgh a few months previously. It was blingy and a bit Wannabe at times and I lost the plot quite a lot. But I’m already looking forward to seeing lots more of Rubasingham’s season.

I was a bit disappointed by Mary Page Marlowe at Old Vic Theatre. It had been sold (or maybe I had bought) on the strength of Susan Sarandon appearing in a play alongside Andrea Riseborough. Instead, five actors (and a doll) each play out two scenes, shuffled from the deck of moments in the uniquely typical life of an American woman. It was staged in the round and I sat to the side so I can confirm that the back of Andrea Riseborough’s head and shoulders gave a dramatic performance in her most emotionally charged vignette.

Down the road at Southwark Playhouse, I did enjoy Eugene O’Brien’s play, Heaven. Set on the night of an Irish wedding, two unreliable narrators recount their evening and the 20 years of marriage that led them there. They counteract, contradict, deny, regret, forgive, forget and decide that the thrill of another’s bed may bring excitement, but heaven lies elsewhere.

Still South of the river I was at the wonderful new Brixton House, for the first time, to see Limp Wrist and the Iron Fist. Set largely at a South London bus stop as four gay men of colour prepare for a big night in town. I went with colleagues who all had very different opinions about the scripting and staging. Nick wrote the Cog Night review…

I also visited Bread & Roses pub theatre for the first time, as part of Lambeth Fringe. [no] good grief was a joyous theatrical funeral marking the premature burial of Trans performer Cerulean. I sat in a party hat on the uncomfortable ‘pews’ and contemplated how difficult it is to ever understand the complexity of another person’s life, as two of my fellow mourners danced with the officiant and the body of the funeral’s protagonist.

I end my cultural trek in the Deep South of Bromley. I went with family to see Derren Brown’s Only Human at the Churchill Theatre. I’m sure Derren was great, he always is. But I don’t remember much of the show. What I remember is the aggressive drunken, racist man chatting and shouting at the stage, and threatening the young women who asked him to shut up. And I remember the excellent house staff who came to speak to those women after they complained, and the security guard who stood discretely at the end of the row while an usher kept an eye on proceedings. And I remember thinking how hard it must be to work front-of-house in a theatre whose financial stability relies on people being drunk during a Saturday matinee. Hats off to those front-of-house workers. Let’s hope theatres are not going the same way as cinemas, or I’ll have to rely on the telly for all my entertainment.

Plans for 2026…

Despite my occasional grumpiness, I really do enjoy the theatre. There’s already lots to look forward to in 2026:

Twelfth Night, Barbican / Christmas Day, Almeida / Most Favoured, Soho Theatre / The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Riverside Studios / Gecko’s The Wedding, Sadler’s Wells East / Eat The Rich (But Maybe Not Me Mates), Soho Theatre / Guess How Much I Love You, Royal Court / BIGRE ‘Fish Bowl’, Peacock Theatre / Daniel Kitson WIP, Stanley Arts / Ockham’s Razor’s Collaborator, The Place / Man and Boy, National Theatre Dorfman / Dante Do or Die: I do, Ma Maison / Arcadia, Old Vic / Shitheads, Soho Theatre / Stomping Rif Rafs, 100 Club / The Tempest, Sam Wanamaker Theatre / Cardiacs, Electric Brixton / Welcome to Pemfort, Soho Theatre / John Proctor is the Villain, Royal Court / Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Troxy / Teeth’n’Smiles, Duke of York / The Wooster Group: Nayatt School Redux, Coronet Theatre / Krapp’s Last Tape, Royal Court / The Archers Live, De La Warr Pavilion / Man to Man, Royal Court.