Uplift in patrols: West End businesses fund major Christmas crime crackdown November 19, 2025 The largest single private-sector investment in enhanced security and policing in London’s West End was launched, involving over 600 businesses in the busy section of the capital. Operation West End, an initiative from the New West End Company, which represents over 600 West End businesses, including on Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street, works [...]
The Line of Beauty at the Almeida review: Horny and exceedingly fabulous October 30, 2025 The Line of Beauty at the Almeida review and star rating: ★★★★ Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty is considered alongside The Normal Heart and Angels in America to be one of the seminal queer texts confronting the AIDS pandemic. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2004 but is more interested in queer hedonism [...]
50 First Dates musical review: Surprisingly, it feels like a good fit for the stage October 10, 2025 50 First Dates musical review and star rating: ★★★ This year’s ‘was a film and is now a London musical’ cohort includes The Devil Wears Prada, Hercules, Paddington and Elf! The Musical. They join Mean Girls, Moulin Rouge and The Bodyguard, and a host of critics crying about the lack of originality in musical theatre. [...]
Mayor of London to move ahead with plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street October 6, 2025 The mayor of London has confirmed he is ploughing ahead with “bold proposals” to pedestrianise Oxford Street after claiming a one-day traffic ban significantly boosted the local economy. Footfall in the West End area was 45 per cent higher on the day when traffic was prohibited from accessing a half-mile stretch of road from Orchard [...]
Clarkston review: Joe Locke proves he’s bigger than Heartstopper September 26, 2025 Clarkston play review and star rating: ★★★★★ Who better to lead a new play about the ecstatic highs and maddening pitfalls of youth than Joe Locke from Netflix’s Heartstopper, the show which basically rewrote the rule book for how Gen Z should be represented on TV. Just don’t confuse this for a star vehicle: Clarkston [...]
The Producers, London musical review: the West End’s most shocking show September 16, 2025 The Producers musical review and star rating: ★★★★ Sequinned y-fronts emblazoned with swastikas, floral designs shaped into the Nazi symbol and sing-a-longs including lines like “it’s springtime for Hitler and Germany, Deutschland is happy and gay!” It could only be The Producers, the tongue-in-cheek Nazi musical within a musical written 58 years ago that, despite [...]
Wicked: Record London show sales after film’s success September 11, 2025 The global box office success of the big screen adaptation of musical Wicked helped the London stage show rake in record ticket sales last year. The film, staring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, was released in November 2024 and generated more than $756m (£559.2m) worldwide off the back of a successful promotional tour. It was [...]
Juniper Blood review at Donmar Warehouse: Mike Bartlett’s climate change play lacks heat August 27, 2025 Juniper Blood review and star rating: ★★★ Mike Bartlett‘s play Cock starring Jonathan Bailey and Taron Egerton became one of the most expensive plays in West End history in 2023 when seats went for north of £400. That play, like Unicorn, looked at changing attitudes towards sexuality, but another of Bartlett’s recurrent themes is climate [...]
How the Barbican Theatre has rivalled the West End for four decades August 21, 2025 Our Toast the City Awards are celebrating the City’s top spots and takes place this October. This week: the Barbican Theatre. Think of the Barbican Centre and you might picture the lakeside suntrap or Brutalist passageways that feel purposefully designed to get lost in. You might not immediately think of the Barbican Theatre, but here’s why you [...]
London ‘staring down the barrel’ of £2bn hit from higher business rates August 14, 2025 London is set to take a massive blow from changes to business rates when the tax increases next April. Business rates could rise by an estimated 26 per cent across the capital, from £9bn to £11bn, according to the Heart of London Business Alliance (HOLBA). “Businesses in the West End and across London are staring [...]