Lit theatre signs at night on Shaftesbury Avenue: a big board for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg over the Gielgud, then the upright Apollo and Lyric signs

The Gielgud, Apollo and Lyric theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue at night.

Now as you probably know, London’s West End and New York’s Broadway are the world’s two biggest centres for English-language commercial theatre. These days the West End sells more tickets (17.64 million in 2025, almost three million more than Broadway), while Broadway takes more money.

So there’s always loads and loads of shows on in London - essentially there’s some of everything, from the very corporate (e.g. Disney’s Lion King) through the worthy (such as War Horse, most recently at the National Theatre in summer 2026) to the literary (The Crucible is revived in London every few years) and the geriatric (The Mousetrap).

What might not be so obvious is that it’s very highly competitive - the shows compete with one another to put bums on seats, and there’s only so many audience-members to go around. So new shows are opening and (in many cases) rapidly failing and closing all the time.

That means that there’s not a lot of point us recommending particular shows here - unless they’re massive hits - because they might be gone by the time you visit London. And if they’re massive hits then you probably know about them already.

The red-brick Palace Theatre lit up at night, with a Harry Potter and the Cursed Child sign and gold wings over the entrance and crowds on the pavement

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre, Cambridge Circus.

Also, it’s a full-time job keeping up with the changes in the West End.

So, I don’t think we can do better than refer you to TheatreMonkey, which is a website that keeps track of all the shows in the West End, gives audience reviews, and (quite importantly) tells you which seats are value for money and which aren’t. Here’s TheatreMonkey’s A to Z of current shows, so you can look up the show you’re interested in.

For kids, you probably want to look mostly at the musicals rather than the plays, as most of the plays aren’t really suitable for children.

Crowds outside the London Palladium at night under a Peter Pan banner, with Christmas trees on the balcony above

Queuing for the Peter Pan pantomime at the London Palladium.

Other info that might be useful:

  • The Polka Theatre has some of the best children’s theatre in the UK, probably among the best in the world (which is why we’ve given it it’s own article here).
  • Kids Week: Free children’s tickets to shows during the summer. One child aged 17 or under goes free with each full-price adult ticket, up to two more children pay half price, and there are no booking fees. It now runs through the school summer holidays (20 July to 31 August in 2026, with some shows into September) - and no, I don’t know why they call it a ‘week’ when it lasts for six weeks.

The Official London Theatre Ticket Booth in Leicester Square: a low stone kiosk with a clock tower and bright orange lettering along its roof, seen across the lawn

The Official London Theatre Ticket Booth in Leicester Square.

  • Official London Theatre Ticket Booth (formerly TKTS): This is the London theatre industry’s own outlet for last-minute unsold tickets, run by the not-for-profit Society of London Theatre. It’s a good place to get a bargain ticket (up to 50% off) for a show the same day or up to a week ahead, and the same deals are online too. But (and pay attention now) there are lots of other ticket booths in the vicinity that pretend to be the official TKTS booth! The official one is in the clocktower building on the south side of Leicester Square, opposite the Radisson Blu Edwardian Hampshire hotel, with an orange ‘Official London Theatre Ticket Booth’ sign. That is the only one run by the theatre industry itself. Do not go to any of the nearby shops/booths promising cheap or half-price tickets: they may charge more than face value, and few of their seats are really half price. For the best price, use the official booth, the theatre’s own box office or OfficialLondonTheatre.com. And never buy from people selling tickets in the street - worst-case scenario you might actually be sold a fake ticket.
  • Sometimes the TKTS booth has a big queue. If they’re showing same-day ticket availability for one of the theatres which is close to Leicester Square (and most of them are), then it will probably be quicker - and might be cheaper too - for you to walk over to the theatre box-office and ask them in person if they have any cheap tickets for today’s show. If they’re not busy then haggling a bit is worth a try - ask, do they have any cheaper seats? How about restricted view? Concessions?
  • Do not go to The Mousetrap (also known as ‘the tourist trap’ - the world’s longest-running show) unless you are at least as geriatric as the play itself, and you want to reminisce about how theatre was in 1952. To save you the trouble of going: the murderer is Sergeant Trotter (spoiler; click or tap the black bar to see the name).
  • As well as the West End theatres, London has some state-subsidised theatre companies, which tend to do more ‘cultural’ shows: these are at the Royal Ballet and Opera House, the National Theatre and the Southbank Centre on the South Bank, English National Opera at the London Coliseum, and the Barbican theatre (a London base of the Royal Shakespeare Company).
  • Musicals ‘based on’ the greatest hits of pop/rock bands (‘jukebox musicals’) ‘jumped the shark’ quite some time ago. The Buddy Holly Story had done ok for years, but then Mamma Mia (ABBA) was such a big success - and it is a decent show - then the formula was copied with the Queen-tastic We Will Rock You (reputedly pretty poor, although I haven’t seen it myself) and then the flood-gates opened and every and any band with any kind of a greatest hits catalogue licensed them for the stage, leading to fail-fests such as Viva Forever (Spice Girls). Some of them - such as Thriller Live, which ran at the Lyric from 2009 to 2020 - gave up on plot entirely, and you just got a half-hearted rendition of the star’s back-catalogue by an actor who wasn’t the star. So why bother?
  • Tim Minchin’s Matilda (based on the classic Roald Dahl children’s book) is great, everyone loves it. Suitable for 6 years and up.
  • For adults only, The Book of Mormon also has a great reputation, although I can’t speak from personal experience.
  • Ms L says I should point out that - even for children’s shows such as The Gruffalo, there may be nowhere to park a buggy (stroller). Some theatres, such as the Lyric and the Garrick, have a buggy park (though it’s upstairs), but others have only a small cloakroom, if that, so check with the theatre before you go. If you’re bringing a pre-school child then you need to take a folding buggy (stroller) and be prepared to carry your kid up and down a bunch of stairs. Also baby-changing facilities tend to be a tight squeeze.

The Garrick Theatre at night, its front lit gold, with a neon sign for the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company's The Winter's Tale

The Garrick Theatre on Charing Cross Road.

For reviews, see:

Looking up at a stained-glass THEATRE sign from underneath, with a white stone building and bare trees beyond

A stained-glass theatre sign, seen from the doorway underneath.