TOP PICKS OF
SHOWS TO SEE
CHECK OUT OUR WHAT'S ON PAGES HERE for more shows at London pub theatres
HORROR
SEASON IS HERE INVITING
THRILLS AND CHILLS. If this doesn't float your boat, there's plenty more to choose from here below and on our What's On pages, check them out
here
Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT at Theatre at the Tabard, Chiswick 24 Sept - 18 Oct Directed by Olivier Award winner Bill Alexander
Shakespeare’s most famous comedy is rooted in tragedy. Within the first quarter of an hour we meet a young woman confronting the horrific possibility that her twin brother is drowned, a young man in an agony of rejected love, and a household servant who believes fate has made him a slave when he should be a lord. The genius of the play lies in how the author weaves these stories together in the music of comedy while the principle characters experience life though the grating noise of tragically unfulfilled desires, self deceit, and constant humiliation. This emotional juggling act could only have been pulled off by a great writer at the height of his power.
The Chronicle Theatre Company is proud to offer its audience one of the world’s greatest plays in a simple, lean and accessible production suitable for all ages and dedicated to clarity, honesty, and laughter.
LAMBETH FRINGE FESTIVAL (Formerly Clapham Fringe) RETURNS SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER CELEBRATING 10 YEARS WITH A PROGRAMME OF OVER 200 EVENTS 25 September - 25 October
Celebrating the vibrant culture & community of Lambeth, platforming underrepresented voices in the arts, produced by the team behind Bread and Roses Theatre in Clapham. The 2025 programme features theatre, comedy, cabaret, music and family.
Participating pub theatres include
Bread and Roses Theatre in Clapham,
White Bear Theatre in kennington and
Golden Goose Theatre in Camberwell.
MAKE ENGLAND GREAT AGAIN at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate
30 Sept - 19 Oct 2025
Francis Beckett’s new play Make England Great Again is set just after the Britons First Party wins its first ever general election victory, and its charismatic leader Max Moore enters 10 Downing Street.
It’s a comedy, but also a warning.
Francis Beckett’s last three plays have had successful runs at Upstairs at the Gatehouse. The New Statesman called A Modest Little Man “a moving and entertaining play about Clement Attlee.”
In The House Magazine, John McDonnell MP wrote of Vodka with Stalin: “As always with Francis’s work, you can’t fail to become emotionally close to the characters.”
Read interview with the author, journalist and playwright Francis Beckett
HERE
Horror WELCOME TO GRIMFEST at Old Red Lion Theatre, Bread & Roses and Barons Court Theatre 13 - 31 Oct
A celebration of dark & twisted theatre in the bleeding heart of London! GrimFest returns for it's fourth year of thrills & chills across spooky season in haunted pub venue, Old Red Lion. And it's bigger and better than ever, expanded to two new venues.
Synchronicity at White Bear Theatre, Kennington 14th - 18th October
A new play about Jung by Pulitzer Prize nominee Arthur I. Miller
In 1931 the brash and brilliant physicist Wolfgang Pauli approached the world-renowned analyst Carl Jung for help. Pauli’s neurosis had wreaked such havoc with his psyche that when Jung first saw him, he felt as if the “wind had blown over from the lunatic asylum”. In their discussions they struck sparks off each other and in the end not one but both of them were changed.
Synchronicity is about psychology, physics, alchemy and the extraordinary things that can happen when two brilliant minds meet. Thought provoking, sometimes deep, sometimes moving - it is about how a meeting of the minds can change the world.
Blue Bar Presents: The Wolf of Poyais: Featuring Joz Norris Golden Goose Theatre 21 - 25 October / Featuring Joz Norris (Comedians’ Choice Award Winner)
Confidence, Charisma, Complete Nonsense
Are you tired of struggling along with everyone else? Have you always secretly known you were meant to be rich? Are you ready to succeed? For one week only, we are proud to present this once in a lifetime event that will teach you to unleash the greatness within you and achieve the success you deserve, presented by the hero of the Peninsular War, hero of the Venezuelan Revolution, Liberator of Florida and Cazique of Poyais, the one and only Sir Gregor MacGregor! In 1820 Gregor MacGregor returned to London from fighting in the Spanish American Wars of Independence to announce he had been made ‘Cazique’ of a new nation, Poyais. A country that did not exist, but that didn’t stop him from selling it!
Horror THE SUMMONED at Etcetera Theatre 21 - 25 Oct AND Lion & Unicorn Theatre 28 Oct - 1 Nov
A dark and twisted Halloween thriller, centred around a group of 5 very different people, who are lured to a ritual in an abandoned monastery. The longer the night goes on they realise their ritual master ‘Lucian’ is not just an actor playing a role, he is something much much darker.
Will they make it out alive, or will the ritual claim them forever?
The Summoned is an edge-of-your-seat, unpredictable, fast paced Halloween thriller, guaranteed to shake the foundations of what you know is real.
Join our group in a ritual which goes life changingly wrong.
Will they get out alive?
Are you ready to meet The Summoned?
Horror FRANKENSTEIN at Bridge House Theatre, Penge 21 Oct - 1 Nov
When explorer Captain Robert Walton rescues Victoria Frankenstein from an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean, he hears the shocking events that have brought her there. As a woman with a passion for science in an age that forbids her to pursue it, she is forced to adopt the male persona of Victor to attend university. The ruse is soon discovered leading to her expulsion, but not before she has befriended a tutor whose interest in unorthodox scientific methods has set her on a dark path from which there will be no return.
The team behind acclaimed productions of The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, The Hound Of The Baskervilles & Dracula bring Mary Shelley’s gothic horror classic, in a brand new adaptation that will both thrill modern audiences & delight fans of the novel.
Horror THE MONKEY'S PAW at The Hope Theatre, Islington 21 Oct - 8 Nov
In your darkest hour, what would you wish for?
In Edwardian London, newlyweds John and Jenny White set up home together. They look forward to a happy and prosperous life, their home echoing with the laughter of their children. As the years pass, things do not turn out the way they had hoped. Living in an isolated cottage on a pitch-black street, with a world war rumbling away in the background and the price of everything going through the roof, John and Jenny face the ravages of poverty and childlessness.One day, a mysterious, ancient object comes into their possession, a ghoulish talisman that seems to grant wishes. Could this be the remedy for all their troubles? Or is it something more sinister, with the power to plunge them into far deeper miseries?
Adapted from the macabre Edwardian ghost story by W. W. Jacobs, we bring you a re-imagining of The Monkey's Paw: a spine-tingling warning of the dangers of meddling with fate and a chilling reminder to be careful what you wish for.
Horror
ONE MAN POE BY EDGAR ALLAN POE at Jack Studio Theatre, SE London 28 Oct – 1 Nov
Winner of Spookies Award for Best Horror Solo Show, and The Derek Award for best show overall (Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024/2025)
Renowned as the ‘Godfather of Gothic Horror’, Edgar Allan Poe was a pioneer in establishing the horror genre. Although his works are nearly 200 years old, Poe’s stories have stood the test of time and have inspired a countless number of horror writers.Using Edgar Allan Poe’s original text from the 1840s, award-winning storyteller Stephen Smith faithfully brings to life three of the most terrifying examples of the gothic genre from the pioneering Godfather of Gothic Horror as never before.
19th Street Productions Present THE PROBLEM WITH THE SEVENTH YEAR at White Bear Theatre, 28 Oct - 15 Nov
"You’ve got to throw every punch with ‘bad intentions.’ If you don’t, you’re better off becoming an educated gentleman and not a boxer. And don’t kid yourself: you can’t be both”
A young man's boxing career conflicts with his life as a medical student.
Working as a cut-man, the consequences of his double-life catch up with him.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE SEVENTH YEAR is a bloody, unflinching drama about the fine line between being clever and being a coward.
WRITTEN BY NICHOLAS PIERPAN
Nicholas Pierpan is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. THE PROBLEM WITH THE SEVENTH YEAR won the Cameron Mackintosh Award for New Writing.
Author, Composer, Soldier-of-a-sort at White Bear Theatre, Kennington 2 & 3 November
written & performed by Jan Carey
A celebration of the enduring friendship between the brilliant and tragic composer and World War I poet, Ivor Gurney, and Marion Scott, writer and trailblazer of women musicians, written and performed by Jan Carey. It was to Scott that Gurney sent his music and poetry from the trenches. The horror of The Great War, contrasted with his deep love for his native Gloucester, coloured his writings. Yet Gurney's slow deterioration into madness after being gassed at Passchendaele showed that, despite their very different backgrounds, their friendship withstood war, illness and despair, as well as triumph, madness and joy.
Directed by Michael McCaffery, the story is brought to life through the rich material of Ivor Gurney and Marion Scott’s memories, poems and letters, interweaved with some of Gurney’s most loved songs from the recordings of Ian Partridge, tenor and Jennifer Partridge, piano.
‘A masterclass’ ★★★★★ broadwaybaby.com
‘a delicate and moving piece of storytelling’ ★★★★ The Stage
The Sea Horse at Golden Goose Theatre 4th - 15th November 2025
Set in a dark waterfront bar of the same name, The Sea Horse is a tender yet brutally honest love story between two hardened outsiders: Gertrude, the tough, guarded bar owner, and Harry, a weathered seaman with a new dream. Their relationship, which has been purely physical so far, is tested when Harry returns from sea with a vision of a shared future and a proposal of marriage. As Harry attempts to break through Gertrude's carefully constructed emotional walls, the play becomes a raw and compelling courtship ritual, filled with fighting, humour, and the painful revelation of long-held secrets. It is a story about vulnerability, the courage it takes to trust, and the profound human need for connection.
First performed in 1974, the play's themes about the transformative power of love remain as poignant today as they were then. Critically-acclaimed and award-winning Director Mandi Riggi is at the helm, bringing this revival of the beloved 1974 classic to a London audience. The Sea Horse promises to be a poignant, heartfelt and earnest night out for London theatre-goers.
THUNK Productions presents PARATROOPERS at the Hope Theatre 10 - 14 November
Frank Fletcher, long-time senior MP for Cackby has suddenly died. Labour Party members have gathered at North Cackby Community Arts Centre to choose a successor. But when Mackenzie Steele and Connor Banks happen to be the only "high-quality" candidates born in Cackby, how much of a choice do you really have?
"A frenetic triumph and cautionary tale" - The Live Review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Hilarious and clever comedy" - Everything Theatre ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Horror
LOOP
Written and performed by Tanya-Loretta Dee at Theatre503 10 - 29 November 2025
Bex is fucking obsessed! She can’t get James out of her head. In the Peckham party shop where she twists balloon animals for minimum wage, all she can think about is him. The locket her Mother gave to her – the day she started her period – clings like a curse, whispering warnings that Bex constantly ignores. As her grip on reality unravels, Bex circles the same stories about wolves, witches and wanking, each one darker than the last. Will she ever break the loop? Or will she disappear into fantasy forever? LOOP is a chilling psychological folktale that drags us kicking and screaming into the horrors of an obsessive mind. What happens when you can’t tell yourself the truth? What happens when the story threatens to swallow you whole?
Tanya-Loretta Dee’s debut play Loop is a bold fusion of folk tale and horror. A surreal one-woman fever dream, it’s a love story that dives headfirst into obsessive desire, limerence, and the intoxicating pull of fantasy over reality.
Psst ... more shows being added each week
