Lyn Gardner's Weekly Picks
Published on 26 May 2026
Let a little sunshine into your life with La Fille Mal Gardée the Royal Ballet’s sublime revival of Frederick Ashton’s delightful comic romcom, which returns this week and runs into June. It’s billed as a ballet of pure sunshine, and so it proves in a show that mixes silliness and tenderness to create a light-as-air confection. In previous iterations the show featured a real-life pony. But in the era of War Horse, Paddington, and more, in this revival wooden automata will make its debut, replacing the traditional white Shetland pony.
If you enjoyed the recent BBC’s adaptation of The Other Bennet Sister, a sideways look at Pride and Prejudice through the overlooked sister, Mary, then you may also like Adrian Lukis’ Being Mr Wickham, which slips into the Garrick for one night this week. Lukis played the dastardly Wickham in the 1995 TV version of Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth), and now he returns to the rogue who is now past 60 and wants to tell his side of the story, the one that Jane Austen didn’t write.
It’s almost last orders for Teeth n Smiles, which finishes at the Harold Pinter Theatre on June 6th. David Hare’s play about the fag end of the 1960s and the realisation that post-war optimism and radical politics had changed nothing may not have quite stood the test of time, but it’s a rousing evening and comes with a performance from Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka Self-Esteem) which is quite as memorable as Helen Mirren was in the original Royal Court production 50 years ago.
Interesting to see that Jesus Christ Superstar, which is playing a limited summer season at the London Palladium, will return in the autumn heading into the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in October. Timothy Sheader’s production, first seen at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2019, has been a gift that keeps on giving. No surprise, it’s a terrific package of design, choreography and insight which turns water into wine, offering, on one level, a simple retelling of a familiar story but, on others, a biting examination of religious and political fanaticism and state expediency. In Drew McOnie’s choreography, Jesus’ followers often appear like the jerking inmates of a mental asylum.
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.