Lyn Gardner’s Heatwave Round-Up: Summer in the City as Theatre Hots Up
Published on 21 May 2026
The sun is shining at last, and theatre is hotting up too as summer begins. No better places to celebrate than at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park, where there are picnics on the lawn, barbecue food, and cool beers to help the art slip down on a summer’s evening. There are few more magical places in London on a warm summer’s day as the shadows lengthen. The Open Air Theatre has delivered a string of hit musical revivals over the last 10 years, so hopes are high for Drew McOnie’s new staging of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. Watch that fur fly.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream used to be a staple of the Open Air theatre’s summer programme, but the regular outings started to feel a bit predictable, and it was dropped. But now, after a gap of many years, this Shakespeare favourite is back with a new revival by Atri Banerjee, which comes with a folk-inspired score by Maimuna Memon, whose excellent Manic Street Creature was recently seen at the Kiln.
The Open Air Theatre’s Dream has competition at Shakespeare’s Globe, where Emily Lim’s funny, environmentally conscious A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs until August. Also look out for that delightful summer comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, which opens at the Globe in June. Brecht’s Mother Courage is definitely not a light or easy choice, but the Globe’s revival with Michelle Terry as the chancer war profiteer traversing a divided Europe in the near future has been critically acclaimed. Even by critics who hate Brecht. Quite an achievement.
The hottest ticket of the summer so far is undoubtedly Ava Pickett’s 1536 (Ambassadors), which has a very fine collection of sizzling five-star reviews. History was never as sharp, funny and stinging as it is in here as Pickett tells of how the arrest and execution of Anne Boleyn, the queen of England, impacts the lives of Anna, Jane and Mariella, three young women who have lived in the same Essex village all their lives.
The heat is on, too, in Driftwood at the Kiln. Casualty star Martina Laird’s debut play, which transfers from the RSC in Stratford, is set in languorous Trinidad in the 1950s. It’s a spicy and piquant family drama about colonialism, political change, family relationships and people who all want to make something of themselves.
Another RSC production is also coming to London in June as Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Adrian Lester and Susannah Fielding, arrives at the Noel Coward Theatre. Simon Evans's production got rave reviews in Stratford, and this show about hot passions and unrequited love is both funny and heartbreaking.
Temperatures also rise with tragic consequences in Arcadia, Carrie Cracknell’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s greatest play, Arcadia, which transfers from the Old Vic to the Duke of York's. The heat of the Deep South lingers over To Kill a Mockingbird, which returns to Wyndham's this summer. For hot moves, check out choreographer Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man (Sadler's Wells from late July), his dance thriller inspired by Bizet’s opera, Carmen.
One of the potential hits of the summer is Simon Stone’s new contemporary version of the ancient Greek Oresteia (Bridge Theatre), the big daddy of all family revenge dramas, which comes with a big cast to match: David Morrissey, Mary Louise Parker, Rosie Sheehy and Tom Glynn-Carney. Stone never makes a dull show, always making the old seem newly minted.
If blood and revenge are not your thing, then settle back for the Cole Porter musical High Society at the Barbican, where Helen George stars as the icy Philadelphia heiress whose nuptials are about to be celebrated at the family pile. But things are about to heat up with the arrival of newshound Mike (Freddie Fox). Felicity Kendal also stars.
There is more Andrew Lloyd Webber in Jesus Christ Superstar at the London Palladium, which comes with a pick-your-own-Herod option (choose from Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Simon Russell Beale, Richard Armitage, Boy George, Layton Williams and Julian Clary on various dates during the run). The production has a limited summer season but will return in the autumn to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
There was a time when Lloyd Webber had a stranglehold on the British musical. No longer. Home-grown musical shows are on the rise. That includes Hot Mess (The Other Palace), a scorching hit at Edinburgh last summer, an ingenious climate change musical exploring the relationship between Earth and Hu—short for Humanity. It is clever, witty stuff, a musical with brains as well as terrific songs.
By Lyn Gardner
Lyn Gardner is an acclaimed theatre journalist and former critic with decades of experience covering British theatre, from off-West End and fringe theatre to major West End productions.