Theatre Guru Drew shares ... Which Show to See?

by guest blogger Drew Alvarez

Deciding What West End Show(s) to See:

So you’ve just booked a trip to London and you want to know what’s the hottest ticket on the West End. For those who don’t know, the West End is London’s theater district, the British equivalent of Broadway. There are 39 West End theaters in operation and this doesn’t include venues like Shakespeare’s Globe, The National Theatre, or the many, many off-West End productions. With so much going on, it can be hard to narrow down to only one or two shows. Here’s how I picked what shows I wanted to see and a helpful guide on how to decide which show is right for you. 

 

This most recent trip to London, I was lucky enough to have the time and resources to see 9 shows in 6 days. Having been to London on two previous trips and done all the checklist must-sees, I wanted to have just a week of pure theatre indulgence, seeing all the shows I might not get a chance to see again. Not everything transfers over to Broadway or tours around the United States. Also British theater on a whole feels more accessible cost-wise. Obviously you have the cost of getting to London, but while you’re there, you might as well take advantage of it. The 9 shows I saw in the West End cost roughly the same as the 3 Broadway productions I saw in April combined, and the seats were about the same quality if not better in London. Now if this was about a trip to New York, I’d be telling you all about lottery tickets, rush tickets, and other ways to get cheaper seats. London has some of these available as well, but this trip I bought almost everything in advance just so I could have a plan and maximize my time. You can see a list of everything currently running on sites like London Theatre. 

 

The Hits 

Of course, if you just want a taste of West End theater, you cannot go wrong with the mega-hits that have been playing for ages. Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, Mamma Mia, Les Miserables, Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap (which has been running in London since 1952) have all been running pretty much nonstop for the past 25+ years. Of course a lot of these are running on Broadway (or will be returning shortly if they closed) or touring across the United States so you might want to pass on these to see something you won’t get the chance to see again to make your trip more unique. 

Shows Not Running in the US

The first two shows on my list that I knew I was 100% going to see this trip were the revival of Oliver! based off of the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. and Matilda the Musical based on Roald Dahl’s children's book of the same name. Surprisingly enough, Oliver! despite being a hit on both sides of the pond when it opened and having an Academy Award-winning movie adaptation in 1968 (the last musical to win Best Picture until Chicago in 2002), Oliver! hasn’t been performed on Broadway since a short-lived revival in 1983 starring Ron Moody reprising his role from the movie as Fagin and Patti Lupone as Nancy. Despite the star talent attached, that revival only ran for 17 performances. Unlike the states, you can’t go 5 years without a revival of Oliver! popping up in London. Given the drought of Oliver! performed state-side, I knew I had to take my chance to see one of my favorite scores sung live, professionally, and with a full orchestra. I mean “Where is Love”, “Consider Yourself”, “I’d Do Anything”, “As Long As He Needs Me”, “Reviewing the Situation”. It is a no-skips album (well maybe “I Shall Scream” but besides that, no-skips). The West End cast was absolutely phenomenal.

 

 

Matilda the Musical is a much more recent example than Oliver!. A beautiful score by Tim Minchin and book by Dennis Kelly about a bright young girl rising above her circumstances, it has been running in London since 2011 where it won Best Musical at the Olivier Awards. I was lucky enough to see the original and closing Broadway casts of Matilda in 2013 and 2016. Fearing a similar run of a Matilda-less Broadway like Oliver has had, I wanted one more chance to see the amazing sets and delightful direction of the show. It was as comforting as ever even 12 years after seeing it for the first time (just realizing the actress I saw playing Matilda in London probably wasn’t even born the first time I saw it in New York). 

 

Award Winning Shows

If you’re stuck on what to see, you can always look at what shows won the top prizes at the Olivier Awards, London’s version of the Tony Awards that celebrate the best in theater that happen annually in April. I was lucky enough on this trip to see the most recent Best Play (Giant) and Best Musical (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) winners. You could instantly tell why both productions won their respective awards. 

 

Giant by Mark Rosenblatt is about Roald Dahl’s antisemitic comments he made right before his novel The Witches came out and his publishers from both England and America trying to do some PR control. It felt timely and was a heck of a gut punch. Both the monologues that close act one and act two leave you reeling and wanting to jump through the fourth wall onto the stage to either hug the character or beg them to hang up the phone respectively. It was wild seeing a production of Matilda based off of Roald Dahl’s work not even 24 hours later. This was the one show that I waited on to get tickets. My plane from New Orleans landed at Heathrow at around 1 PM and I didn’t want to get tickets unless I was positive I was awake and alert enough to see something, not to mention plane or transit delays. After a nap, I woke up feeling fresh and saw they still had about 3 standing-room-only tickets left for sale for 20 pounds. I couldn’t pass on a chance to see the hit play starring John Lithgow, who won an Olivier Award himself for his portrayal of Dahl. For what it is worth, having done a couple of standing-room-only tickets on Broadway and London now, it usually isn’t as bad as it sounds, especially after sitting on a plane for ten hours. They usually stick you at the back of the orchestra or balcony and there’s a railing to lean against the whole time. Also very quick access to the restroom and concessions. 

 

Speaking of the Olivier Awards, much like the Tony Awards you can often find performances of that season’s new musicals. This is a great place to start looking to see what shows might grab your attention. I first saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Olivier performance the day after the Olivier Awards aired and knew it had to be on my shortlist. It definitely lived up to the hype. I will take this moment though to say I wish West End shows had free programs like Playbills. They all have souvenir programs that you can purchase for 5-10 pounds each, but I just want a little program to get some background on the bios, actors’ names, know the runtime and intermission length, know if there are any understudies performing, and know what songs are coming up. For Benjamin Button we had an understudy on for Benjamin and didn’t even know until after the fact. He was fantastic of course and I would never let an understudy performing deter me from seeing a show or change my opinion of it, but it is still nice to know who I’m watching.

 

Broadway Hits

I know I said you should try to see something unique to London, but in this case, with a trip coming up to NYC next month, I wanted to cross two shows off my list that were also playing on Broadway so I’d have fewer options when choosing my plays for that trip. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed both of these shows so much it didn’t even completely remove them from my lists like I hoped for. Operation Mincemeat and this production of Cabaret both did start in London first and a lot of times it is better to see the show in the space it was envisioned for. West End theaters are on average smaller and give a more intimate feel to the productions, which doesn’t work for every show, but these productions definitely benefited from it. Especially Cabaret which wants you to feel like you are at a seedy night club, not a luxurious theater. To achieve that, this production of Cabaret has you enter the theater an hour early through the stage door into the basement like you are entering a speakeasy or somewhere you shouldn’t be. As you ascend levels into the theater proper you walk past a pre-show set of actors playing music in the lobbies and dancers on top of the bars. As the house opens you find your seat (if you pay extra you can sit at a table right next to the stage and be waited on) and the pre-show entertainment slowly makes their way inside and continues performing until the main event. It is truly a unique experience and one you won’t forget. This production of Cabaret has been running in London now for four years, rotating a set of stars. I saw Olivier Award nominee Rob Madge and Bridgerton star Hannah Dodd as the leads and they were phenomenal. It was nice to see a fresh take on a musical from the 60s.

 

Operation Mincemeat is a little show-that-could, written and acted in by four friends who now find themselves starring in the sold-out Broadway transfer. It is a comedy about the actual British World War II plan to plant fake documents on a corpse with hopes that it’d be discovered by the Nazis leading Hitler to move his troops from Sicily. I won’t spoil it but safe to say all of us know who won the war. It won the Olivier Award for Best Musical in 2024. Mincemeat bills itself as the best reviewed West End musical ever and if you see it in either New York or London you’ll see why. You can read a full summary on my substack. If you want to leave a show set around the time of WW II feeling good, see Mincemeat, if you want to see something a little more depressing, head to Cabaret (but at least you get schnapps!). 

 

Since both of these shows have been running for over two years now, you probably won’t see the original stars. A good way to see how the replacements are doing is by checking out performances from West End Live! A marathon of musical performances that take place in Trafalgar Square over a weekend in June every year. You can see performances from pretty much every musical currently running as well as previews for ones opening in the coming months. West End Live was actually happening the weekend I was in London, but didn’t quite work out timing wise since my plane landed halfway through day one and day two I had a matinee, but I try to watch West End Live videos every year. It’s a great way to do research to see a) what’s running and b) what show you might want to see. They post a playlist each year so it’s worth a perusal if you need help narrowing down what might pique your interest! 

 

Niche Interests and Celebrities

From seeing a Shakespeare play at The Globe (which everyone should do once even if they aren’t a Shakespeare fan) to an adaptation of your favorite book (The Great Gatsby) or movie (My Neighbor Totoro) or both (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Hunger Games) there are plenty of things that you can see that you know you are already pre-depositioned to enjoy! Disney of course always has shows running from The Lion King to Aladdin. For me this trip, having a degree in Classical Studies, I made it a point to see Disney’s Hercules and Stephen Sondheim’s rarely performed musical The Frogs, based on the Aristophanes comedy of the same name from 405 BCE.  

 

I’d also count celebrities under this. You might be fans of the previously mentioned John Lithgow in Giant or Hannah Dodd in Cabaret. Glee star Kevin McHale was starring in The Frogs when I saw it. Of course Rachel Zegler is starring (and stunning) in the controversial revival of Evita (which, if you want to see “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” performed live, you’ll have to come back to watch outside of the London Palladium).

 

Wrapping Up

There are a lot of great shows playing in London so it is hard to go wrong with whatever you end up choosing. From your favorite musical to a completely original story, there’s always going to be something to find. If you only get to pick one show in London (or even in New York) hopefully this post helps you narrow it down or at least helps you know where to start looking. 

 

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