Leicester Square Christmas Market ★★ FREE


If you can't get to Winter Wonderland or one of the larger winter festivals, this site will give you some idea of how London tries to make the best of winter. A quick wander through and then visits to the lights of Seven Dials, Covent Garden, or maybe Regent Street will help get you in the spirit.

 Reviewed by J.C.

  Our Score:  ☆☆ 

 WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE:
Last Reviewed: November  2020

Leicester Square
Nearest tube: Leicester Square
http://www.christmasinleicestersquare.com
Map & Location: Leicester Square, London, UK

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A Month in the Country ★★★★★ Donmar Warehouse | Aug 22 - Oct 3, 2026

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Brian Friel’s version of Turgenev’s A Month in the Country is more sexually and psychologically explicit than the original, with the character of Natalya firmly at its centre. Her boredom, sense of entitlement and neediness become the driving forces of a drama in which desire, jealousy and emotional frustration steadily destabilise a superficially tranquil household. Friel makes the play leaner, livelier and considerably funnier than the original. Turgenev regarded his plays as works to be read rather than performed, and Friel cuts the wordiness while bringing the characters’ suppressed feelings sharply to the surface. However, he retains Turgenev’s rich imagery. The curtain rises on a card game in which the comic tutor Schaaf declares that hearts are trump, neatly prefiguring the romantic entanglements to come. Aleksey’s kite, a symbol of youthful freedom and carefree abandon, vividly suggests why Natalya is increasingly attracted to the young tutor. Indeed, his exuberance stands in ...
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Kimberly Akimbo ★★★ Hampstead Theatre | Aug 28 - Nov 7, 2026

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Kimberly Levaco is a young American girl with a medical condition that causes her to age at four times the normal rate. Although still at high school, she appears to be in her sixties. Added to this, her home life is totally dysfunctional. Her father is an alcoholic, her mother is a narcissist, and her aunt, Debra, is a criminal fleeing after an assault which resulted in a man's death. With her condition, which might be described as the reverse of Benjamin Button’s, Kimberly appears to be the only sensible and morally grounded adult in this household of ne’er-do-wells. However, when Debra turns up on the family’s doorstep once again, she brings with her yet another get-rich-quick fraud scheme and threatens to disrupt the normality Kimberly is desperately trying to create. Aunt Debra presents her living-for-the-moment, everyone-out-for-themselves philosophy in the song “Better”. It is a siren call to take risks, break rules and act on impulse, no matter who gets hurt. Surprisingly, ...
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Abigail’s Party ★★★★★ Harold Pinter Theatre | Aug 12 - Sep 19, 2026

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Mike Leigh's acerbic 1977 comedy about the social aspirations and spiritual emptiness of British suburbia gets a first-rate resurrection in this new production, directed by Nadia Fall. The dark parallel between the unseen Abigail and her unbridled teenage revels and the concealed marital tensions and clandestine sexuality that pervade Beverly's pretentious soirée is neatly drawn. The setting is a masterclass in period detail. Peter McKintosh's terrific set, crammed with furnishings and status symbols, creates a claustrophobic world in which every ornament, glass and canapé becomes a badge of social standing. His costumes are equally telling, capturing the fashions and ambitions of a Britain caught between old-fashioned respectability and the new consumer culture. This is Beverly's evening, and Tamzin Outhwaite makes the most of it. She wrings laughs from the most straightforward line, deploying a repertoire of expansive gestures and imperious glances. She dominates the ...
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A Slow Fire ★★★ Jermyn Street Theatre | Aug 20 - Sep 26, 2026

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In a post-apocalyptic world, Reece and Ashton have taken refuge in an industrial lock-up. They pass the time recalling and re-enacting scenes from their past lives, “moments of hope”, as they describe them. Their situation recalls Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon, except that here Godot actually arrives in the form of Presley, a mysterious figure who threatens to disrupt their isolated existence. At first, he joins in their ritual recollections, but eventually reveals darker intentions.  A Slow Fire is described as “part thriller, part excavation of the soul” and it delivers, to varying degrees, on both counts. Unfortunately, its thriller elements are undermined by a structural flaw. The first act takes too long to establish the premises, allowing the tension to dissipate, while the second act then accelerates abruptly as Presley attempts to seduce Reece into participating in his scheme. The result is not simply uneven pacing but an imbalance in the play’s dramatic architecture, wi...
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Jane Eyre A Musical ★★★ Southwark Playhouse, Elephant | Aug 28 - Oct 24, 2026

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Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel is about two flawed individuals whose pride and wayward spirits must be curbed before they can learn to rely on God’s love and on each other. At the story's heart is the need to learn Christian humility and to submit the self to a higher moral purpose. It is a sentiment unlikely to resonate with a contemporary secular audience, which may explain why the novel is more often remembered or presented as a tempestuous love story between two strong-willed characters. This latest musical version does grapple with Brontë’s religious themes, notably through its presentation of Helen Burns as Jane’s role model and the recurring emphasis on forgiveness in her signature song. The reconciliation between Jane and her childhood tormentor, Mrs Reed, similarly brings Brontë’s moral concerns to the fore, as do songs such as “My Maker” and “Children of God”. Yet these elements sit somewhat uneasily alongside the bodice-ripper of a romance that audiences are more likely t...
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St. Martin in-the-fields: Lunchtime Concerts ★★★★ FREE

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Maybe the best musical value in London. The lunchtime concerts at St. Martin's are always a wonderful way to escape the hustle and bustle that is London and the sensory overload that is Trafalgar Square. This is a beautiful setting with great acoustics, and a church pew hard enough to make sure you don't nod off. Reviewed by J.C.  Our score:    ☆☆☆☆  WHEN, WHERE, GETTING THERE: Mon & Fri: 1 pm - 1:45 pm ( occasionally Tues & Thurs)  St. Martin in-the-fields, Trafalgar Square Nearest tube: Charing Cross https://www.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/whats-on
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Who Killed Marilyn? ★ Emerald Theatre | Aug 15 - Oct 29, 2026

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Who Killed Marilyn? by Sharleen Cooper Cohen promises a fresh look at the circumstances surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s death. It also claims to tackle the perhaps more intriguing question: who was Marilyn? Instead, it serves up a standard stew of conspiracy theories, from the Kennedys and the Mafia to the murky machinations of the American establishment, along with some familiar pop psychology. Like many biographical dramas, it falls into the trap of telling rather than showing, awkwardly introducing events and characters in a way that feels forced rather than organic. Here the narrator is the dead Marilyn herself, played by Pixie Lott, who purports to reveal the woman behind the myth. Unfortunately, there is little revelation. Lott captures Monroe’s familiar voice, mannerisms and cinematic gestures, but the performance rarely escapes the caricature. It might have been far more intriguing to have this posthumous Marilyn deliberately distinguish herself from the screen persona she create...
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Annie Wobbler (Revisited) ★★ Finborough Theatre | September 2 - 26, 2026

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A caveat that generally applies to fringe theatre is that when a show is written by, directed by and stars the same person, they have probably taken on too much. Arnold Wesker wrote Annie Wobbler for Nichola McAuliffe in 1981, but it is difficult to discern how much of the original remains in this updated version, and there is no credit given to whoever revised the work. The play consists of three vignettes: Anna, Annabelle and Annie. The brief opening section, Anna, concerns a young woman who, despite graduating from university with honours, is insecure about a date she is about to go on. The character is not developed beyond a rather simplistic stereotype before we move on to the longest section of the show. The novelist Annabelle initially appears as a scatty tippler, silly and self-absorbed as she responds to questions from an offstage interviewer. Later, for no apparent reason, she metamorphoses into an assertive, testy, exercise-obsessed woman who goes through her gym routine wh...
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Death Note: The Musical ★★★★ Barbican Theatre | Jul 30 - Sep 12, 2026

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Calling all manga mavens and animé aficionados! Death Note returns in a full-scale production, pitting Light and L against each other on a spectacular set designed by Jon Bausor. Following successful runs in Japan and Korea, and a London concert version in 2023, the production arrives with two new numbers written especially for it. The story of a schoolboy and a super sleuth locked in a battle of wits after the former discovers a notebook that allows him to kill anyone whose name he writes in it has been streamlined from its original manga version, but the essentials remain. Questions of law versus justice, whether the ends can ever justify the means, and the corrupting influence of power are deftly woven into the cat-and-mouse game between the two protagonists. All this unfolds against the existential questions raised by the shinigami, or death gods, and their intervention in human affairs. The absorbing story moves at a brisk pace, while Frank Wildhorn’s score brings considerable de...
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Electra/Persona ★★★ National Theatre | Aug 19 - Oct 10, 2026

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Benedict Andrews’ new work is a reimagining of Ingmar Bergman’s classic 1966 film. The actress Elisabeth Vogler suddenly stops speaking while in the midst of playing Sophocles’ Electra . While there are various interpretations of Bergman’s film and Vogler’s silence, one of the most compelling is that Electra forces Vogler to confront two truths: the complexity of the divided self, with Electra and Clytemnestra becoming mirror images of each other in their need for vengeance; and the performative nature of all social interactions, including motherhood. Vogler’s withdrawal into silence begins a process which forces her to come to terms with both issues, while her nurse Alma becomes a projection of the parts of herself she has suppressed. As a further reflection of the themes of the divided self and the performative nature of human relationships, Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss alternate roles. On the night we attended, Blanchett played Electra/Vogler while Hoss was Clytemnestra/Alma. Togeth...
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