Feature
Two star seasons and Stranger Things end in December, and several of London’s biggest musicals play their last performance on the first weekend of January. Here is each one, the date it ends, why it is worth catching, and the cheapest realistic way to get a seat before it goes.
Limited seasons with famous names, ending in December. Once the Christmas rush starts, seats for these get scarce.
Wyndham's Theatre · 2hr 20min (incl. 1 interval) · from £25
Last performance: Saturday, 12 December 2026
Noël Coward’s comedy of bad manners, in which every member of a theatrical family has invited a weekend guest and nobody is behaving. Christine Baranski makes her West End debut opposite Richard E. Grant, which is reason enough on its own.
Tickets and deals@sohoplace Theatre · 3hr (1 interval) · from £65
Last performance: Saturday, 19 December 2026
Edward Albee’s night of drink and cruelty between two married couples, staged in the round by Marianne Elliott, with Gillian Anderson as Martha and Billy Crudup as George. Long and harrowing, and the kind of star casting that sells out its last weeks.
Tickets and dealsPhoenix Theatre · 3hr (incl. 1 interval) · from £50
Last performance: Wednesday, 23 December 2026
The stage prequel to the Netflix series, set in Hawkins in 1959, with stage effects people are still talking about on the way out. It won the Olivier for Best Entertainment, and after three years at the Phoenix its London run is ending.
Cheapest ways to see it
The big ones. Several of London’s biggest shows play their last performance within a day or two of each other, so the first weekend of January is the last chance for all of them at once.
Prince Edward Theatre · 2hr 30min (incl. 1 interval) · from £27.50
Last performance: Saturday, 2 January 2027
Tim Burton’s film as a loud, quick-fire musical: Alex Timbers directs, Eddie Perfect wrote the score, and the haunted-house set does a lot of the work. It is closing months earlier than planned, so anyone who assumed they had until spring does not.
Cheapest ways to see it
Ambassadors Theatre · 2hr 20min (incl. 1 interval) · from £31
Last performance: Saturday, 2 January 2027
A stage version of the horror films, set in a couple’s new London flat. It has extended its run several times since opening, so it is one to check the closing date on rather than assume.
Cheapest ways to see it
Shaftesbury Theatre · 2hr 15min (incl. 1 interval) · from £38
Last performance: Sunday, 3 January 2027
The 20th-anniversary revival of the puppet musical, back in London with the original Broadway puppets. Rude, funny songs about being young and broke, performed by actors holding puppets in plain sight. It has already been extended once.
Cheapest ways to see it
Criterion Theatre · 2hr 05min (incl. 1 interval) · from £18.75
Last performance: Sunday, 3 January 2027
A comedy that retells Titanic through the songs of Celine Dion, with two Olivier Awards behind it. The etiquette coach William Hanson plays Ruth for the closing weeks.
Cheapest ways to see it
Gillian Lynne Theatre · 2hr 30min (incl. 1 interval) · from £13.30
Last performance: Sunday, 3 January 2027
The Studio Ghibli film staged with puppets, among them a Totoro that fills a good part of the stage. It has won six Olivier Awards.
Cheapest ways to see it
Shows that run into the second week of January, including two limited seasons with famous names.
Theatre Royal Drury Lane · TBC · from £23
Last performance: Saturday, 9 January 2027
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera, with Sam Ryder as Jesus, in the staging that began at Regent’s Park and played the London Palladium before moving to Drury Lane. Herod is played by a rotating line-up of guest stars.
Tickets and dealsAdelphi Theatre · from £33
Last performance: Saturday, 9 January 2027
Robert Icke’s stage version of the Oscar-winning film, set in 1984 East Berlin, in which a Stasi officer listens in on a writer and an actor from the attic above them. Keira Knightley, Luke Thompson and Stephen Dillane lead the cast. A strictly limited transfer from the National Theatre.
Tickets and dealsHarold Pinter Theatre · from £25
Last performance: Saturday, 9 January 2027
Chekhov’s tragicomedy of a family losing its estate, in Conor McPherson’s new adaptation, directed by Ian Rickson with Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead.
Tickets and dealsPlenty of time, but a strictly limited season all the same.
Apollo Theatre · from £25
Last performance: Saturday, 30 January 2027
Derren Brown’s eleventh London show: mind-reading, psychological illusion and storytelling, built around what it means to be human. A strictly limited season.
Tickets and deals
