25 of the best theatre shows to see in spring and summer 2025

BBC News

15-04-2025

Many theatres around the UK are staging fewer original productions than a decade ago, BBC research has revealed. But there are still plenty of plays and musicals on offer. Here are highlights from some of the theatres covered by the research. Playwright James Graham's latest powerful drama Punch, about the fallout from one fatal moment on a Saturday night out, is based on a true story. It has had rave reviews at Nottingham Playhouse and now at the Young Vic in London, where it runs until 26 April. It will transfer to the West End's Apollo Theatre in September. Raoul Moat, who went on a murderous rampage and spent a week on the run in 2010 is examined by award-winning playwright Robert Icke in Manhunt, which attempts to imagine what was going through Moat's mind. Royal Court, London, until 3 May. Psychological thriller Our New Girl by Nancy Harris, who wrote acclaimed TV comedy-drama The Dry, follows a woman struggling to deal with work and a troubled son when the arrival of an au pair does anything but help. Belfast Lyric, until 4 May. Alexis Deacon's children's book Beegu, about a lonely yellow alien who finds herself lost on Earth, is adapted for ages three to seven and is at the Unicorn Theatre, London, until 4 May. The UK stage premiere of a stage show based on feelgood 1994 Australian film Muriel's Wedding turns the story of the woman who longs to have the wedding of her dreams into a musical. Original songs are mixed with tunes by Muriel's beloved Abba. Leicester Curve, until 10 May.Shakespeare's romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing takes place in the world of footballers, wags and the celebrity high life, led by Freema Agyeman (Doctor Who) and Nick Blood (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, until 24 May.One Man, Two Guvnors playwright Richard Bean's touching and comedic portrait of a Humberside family dealing with ageing and generational frissons, To Have and To Hold, stars Paula Wilcox, Ian Bartholomew and Stephen Tompkinson when it comes home to Hull Truck, 1-24 May.Banksy left an image of a girl standing in falling snow – which is actually ash from a fire – on the corner of a garage near the steelworks in Port Talbot, south Wales, in 2018. Now, Port Talbot Gotta Banksy uses the real words of local people to examine how the community reacted. Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, 2-10 May, then New Plaza, Port Talbot, 15-17 May, and touring.Irish author Roddy Doyle's book Two Pints, about two middle-aged men reflecting on life over a drink in a Dublin pub, gets its UK stage premiere at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre, 2-24 May.Mark Addy plays a man who decides to walk the length of England to visit a former colleague who has cancer, in the world premiere of a stage adaptation of 2012 best-selling book The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Rachel Joyce has adapted her own novel, with songs by chart-topping singer-songwriter Passenger. Chichester Festival Theatre, 5 May-4 June.Martin Luther King meets his match in the form of a Memphis hotel maid in an imagined meeting on the eve of his assassination in Katori Hall's The Mountaintop, in a new production by Edinburgh Lyceum, 31 May-21 June.The final play by unsung Stoke-on-Trent writer Arthur Berry finally gets its world premiere to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. The title character in Whatever Happened to Phoebe Salt? dreams of swapping the grind of her butcher's job for a life in showbusiness. New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 31 May-21 June.Musical Tick, Tick… Boom!, about an aspiring composer confronted by his 30th birthday, became an Oscar-nominated film in 2021. It now reopens Theatr Clwyd in Mold, north Wales, after a three-year, £49m refurbishment. 2-28 June. James Cooper and Jamie Morton - two-thirds of the team behind hit podcast My Dad Wrote A Porno - have made Lovestuck: A New Comedy Musical, which is billed as a "riotous romantic comedy" about dating and the quest to find love. Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, 6 June-12 July.Two children must fend for themselves after their addict mother abandons them in their caravan for the summer holidays in "dark comedy" Flumps (not to be confused with the 1970s children's TV show!). Colchester Mercury, 6-14 June.Three pairs of dancers have made it to Blackpool's National Amateur Championships, but rivalries and mis-steps threaten the fixed smiles and fake tans in Amanda Whittington's Kiss Me Quickstep, Derby Theatre, 6-21 June.Three people in different corners of the world – the fjords of Norway, the mountains of Colorado and the Tesco in Halewood, Merseyside – have encounters with wild animals in The Walrus has a Right to Adventure, inspired by real events. Liverpool Everyman, 12-21 June.A fictional lesbian choir – said to be the only one in the country – face tensions from inside and out as they try to win a place on the Pride main stage in The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs, a musical comedy at the Kiln, London, 13 June-12 July. Welsh 19th Century aristocrat Henry Cyril Paget, the fifth Marquess of Anglesey, scandalised high society with eccentricities that included using a car that converted exhaust fumes into perfume, and blowing his family's fortune on diamond frocks. His story is told in How To Win Against History, Bristol Old Vic, 19 June-21 July.A man who lost his wife to Covid occupies himself by walking his neighbour's dogs. When they escape one day, he takes chase and finds a dead body, forcing him to confront his own grief, in Man's Best Friend at Tron, Glasgow, 19 June-12 July.Sir Lenny Henry's children's book The Boy With Wings, about a boy who discovers he has inherited superpowers and is tasked with saving the world, gets its stage premiere at Polka Theatre, London, 21 June-16 August, then Birmingham Rep, 21-30 August. A couple dealing with the everyday challenges of dementia take inspiration from Leeds United's 2020 promotion-chasing team and their manager Marcelo Bielsa in Through It All Together, which looks set to be perfectly timed to coincide with the team's latest return to the Premier League. Leeds Playhouse, 23 June-19 July. Liberation will mark the 80th anniversary of the Fifth Pan African Congress, which was held in Manchester in 1945 and was a key moment for independence movements. Royal Exchange, Manchester, 27 June-26 July. The writer and director of smash hit Prima Facie, starring Jodie Comer, reunite for a new legal drama. Saltburn's Rosamund Pike plays a judge in Inter Alia, billed as a "searing examination of modern masculinity and motherhood". National Theatre, London, 10 July-13 September.Succession's Brian Cox returns to the Scottish stage for the first time in a decade, playing pioneering 18th Century economist Adam Smith in Make It Happen, James Graham's new satire about the history of the Royal Bank of Scotland and its role in the 2008 financial crash. Dundee Rep, 18-26 July, then Edinburgh Festival Theatre 30 July-9 August.