2020 in theatre: the best plays and musicals to book tickets for now

Magic Goes Wrong

The Mischief Theatre team have joined with those arch proponents and de-mystifiers of magic Penn & Teller to deliver a fresh batch of entertaining shambles. What could possibly go wrong? Vaudeville Theatre, London WC2 (0330 333 4814), Jan 8-May 31. Buy Magic Goes Wrong tickets

London International Mime Festival

Ten overseas companies join eight British groups for this annual celebration of physical and visual theatre, including a piece about an overlooked partnership: The Strange Tale of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, as performed by Told by an Idiot. Various venues (mimelondon.com), Jan 8-Feb 2.

Les Misérables

The reconceived production of Les Mis – without the famous stage-revolve but with ravishing scenery inspired by Victor Hugo’s art-work – is unveiled amid the splendour of a re-constructed Queens Theatre, renamed in honour of America’s greatest living composer of musicals. Sondheim Theatre, London W1 (0844 482 5151), from Jan 16. Buy Les Misérables tickets

The Welkin

Lucy Kirkwood (Chimerica) delivers a surprising choice for a writer who has rooted herself in contemporary life: a play set in rural Suffolk in 1759, and the passing of Halley’s Comet, when a woman sentenced to hang for murder declares that she is pregnant. Maxine Peake stars, James Macdonald directs. National’s Dorfman Theatre, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), Jan 22-March 28.

Uncle Vanya

Fresh from their success last year working on Pinter’s The Birthday Party, director Ian Rickson teams up again with the impeccably rumpled and rueful Toby Jones to deliver Chekhov’s great masterpiece of mid-life regret. Conor McPherson adapts.

Harold Pinter Theatre, London SW1 (0844 871 7622), Jan 23-May 2. Buy Uncle Vanya tickets

Albion

Mike Bartlett’s strongly allegorical 2017 family drama about a grieving mother ploughing her energies into a garden of remembrance successfully got to grips with the bitterly divided Brexit era. Now Rupert Goold’s production gets a welcome second life, with award-winning Victoria Hamilton again leading the cast. Almeida, London N1 (020 7359 4404), Feb 5-Feb 28.

A Monster Calls

As seen at the Old Vic, now on tour: a simple yet stylish rendering of the Patrick Ness best-seller about a boy whose psyche is so disturbed by the imminent death of his mother he conjures the forbidding presence of a story-telling yew-tree shaped giant. Director Sally Cookson is in her inventive element. Chichester Festival Theatre (0344 871 7628), Feb 2-Feb 15; then touring.

The Whip

Juliet Gilkes Romero’s play is set at the turn of the 19th century as politicians discuss the abolition of the slave trade – and its associated costs. Directed by the up and coming (and always compelling) Kimberley Sykes. RSC Swan, Stratford upon-Avon (01789 331111), Feb 11-Mar 21.

Alone in Berlin

Set in 1940, and following a couple’s lone acts of subversion across Berlin, Hans Fallada’s acclaimed novel - described as “the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis” by Primo Levi - has been adapted for the stage by Alistair Beaton and will be directed by James Dacre. Royal & Derngate Northampton (01604 624811), Feb 12-Feb 29

Far Away

A chance to see one of Caryl Churchill’s most highly rated, and most peculiarly disturbing plays, about a world sliding into chaos and collapse – which premiered 20 years ago. BAFTA-winning Jessica Hynes makes her Donmar debut as Harper, a woman nursing a secret about what happens at night. Donmar Warehouse, London WC2 (020 3282 3808), Feb 12-March 28

Leopoldstadt

The eagerly awaited new play from Tom Stoppard revisits a central district of Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. Described as ‘an intimate drama with an epic sweep – the story of a family who made good”, it marks one of the playwright’s most personally invested works to-date. Patrick Marber directs. Wyndham’s Theatre (0844 482 5151), Feb 12-June 13. Buy Leopoldstadt tickets

The Visit

Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt’s 1956 classic is a sinister satirical fable in which an elderly woman of great wealth returns to her hometown with a Faustian bargain: if the people kill the man who jilted her she will reward them with regeneration funds. Jeremy Herrin directs the first major London revival since 1988; Lesley Manville plays the terrifying, wounded Claire Zachanassian. National’s Olivier Theatre, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), Feb 13-May 13.

Upstart Crow

This live spin-off of Ben Elton’s Shakespeare sitcom is specially written for the occasion, continuing where the series left off, and sees David Mitchell making his West End debut as the Bard, or as Mitchell himself puts it “history’s most famous balding dramatist”. Gielgud Theatre, London W1 (0844 4825151), Feb 17-Apr 25. Buy Upstart Crow tickets

Blithe Spirit

As seen at Bath, Jennifer Saunders triumphs as Madame Arcati in this fine Richard Eyre revival of the Noel Coward warhorse comedy about a psychic who causes domestic havoc by summoning the deceased wife of a faintly irascible author into his Kent home. Duke of York’s Theatre, London WC2 (0844 871 7623), March 10-April 11. Buy Blithe Spirit tickets

Love, Love, Love

A revival of Mike Bartlett’s 2010 generation-war provocation about property-rich baby-boomers and their resentful children gets a timely revival from Rachel O’Riordan. Lyric Hammersmith, London W6 (020 8741 6850), March 11-April 4. Buy Love, Love Love tickets

The Seven Streams of the River Ota

The National played host in 1996 to Canadian theatrical auteur Robert Lepage’s epic masterpiece looking at the impact of the Hiroshima bombing across five decades, from a wartime German concentration camp to Nineties Japan. Now it returns to London to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the 1945 attack in a new production. National’s Lyttelton Theatre, London SE1 (020 7452 3000), March 13-22.

4000 Miles

The London stage debut for twentysomething American-French heartthrob Timothée Chalamet (newly seen in The King and Little Women) – who joins Eileen Atkins in Amy Herzog’s delightful – funny and tender – 2011 drama about a West Coast youth who pitches up without warning at his New York grandmother’s apartment in the middle of the night. Matthew Warchus directs.  Old Vic, London SE1 (0844 871 7628), April 6-May 23

The Doctor

Director Robert Icke achieved a triumph at the Almeida in August with his free adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s 1912 play Professor Bernhardi – about a Jewish physician who refuses to allow a Catholic priest to say the last rites for a patient, to spare her the knowledge of her imminent death, and pays the price professionally. Icke has reworked it for the age of viral online outrage and identity politics, with Juliet Stevenson giving a transfixing performance as a woman who has given her life to medicine and refuses to give ground to the mob. Now the West End gets to see regular visitor Icke at his best. Duke of York’s, London WC2 (0844 871 7623), April 20-July 18. Buy The Doctor tickets

Life of Pi

Sheffield Crucible’s exquisite stage-adaptation of Yann Martel’s fantastical tale of shipwreck and survival involving an Indian teenager and a Bengal tiger stranded in the Pacific gets a thoroughly merited West End transfer. Not since Joey – the equine star of War Horse – came cantering into view has a lovingly detailed animal puppet elicited such wonder as “Richard Parker”. There are ravishing projected visuals to match in Max Webster’s production, which will see the auditorium transformed to accommodate the show. Wyndham’s Theatre, London WC2 (0844 4825151), from June 22. Buy Life of Pi tickets

Semmelweis

Oscar-winner Mark Rylance makes his Bristol Old Vic debut in the world premiere of a play about Dr Ignaz Semmelweis – a 19th century Hungarian physician who pioneered basic hand-washing procedures to help save lives, which entailed taking on the might of the medical establishment. Written by Stephen Brown in collaboration with the theatre’s artistic director Tom Morris and Rylance himself. Bristol Old Vic (0117 987 7877), June 13-July 25.

Sister Act

Whoopi Goldberg takes the lead role of Deloris Van Cartier on stage for the first time (having done so on screen in Sister Act and Sister Act 2). This vivacious, vocally dynamic disco diva has been taken into protective custody in a convent where she gets the nuns to adopt a different habit. Jennifer Saunders makes her musical theatre debut as Mother Superior in a revised, refreshed version of the show first seen in the West End in 2009. The music is by Alan Menken (Disney’s Aladdin, Enchanted), direction from Bill Buckhurst. Eventim Apollo, London W6 (0844 249 1000), July 29 to Aug 30. Buy Sister Act tickets

Hello, Dolly!

Imelda Staunton reunites with director Dominic Cooke, with whom she worked on the National’s superlative revival of Follies, to front the late Jerry Herman’s 1964 breakthrough musical, playing the lovable-formidable matchmaker Dolly Levi. The busybody widow is a mission in Yonkers, New York to help a young artist win the hand of the niece of miserly half-a-millionaire Horace Vandergelder, while making plans for Horace herself. Adelphi Theatre, London, WC2 (020 7087 7968), from Aug 11. Buy Hello, Dolly! tickets