From Wildwood to John Legend: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
Anination studio Laika takes flight with a grownup stop-motion tale, while the Grammy-, Oscar- and everything-winner returns with a Pharell-produced 11th album
23 October 2026
The Guardian view on Caryl Churchill’s Triumph: a play for today
Editorial: At barely 20 minutes, this satire on strongman politics serves to jolt audiences out of their complacency
Stranger things turn an English village upside down in Max Porter’s rural noir Lanny
A family are just getting used to their new home in this haunting drama when a parallel world emerges
The Snowman gets a hi-tech rebuild – with help from Raging Bull and a ‘Hot Santa’
More than 30 years after Raymond Briggs’ story became a stage show, director Will Tuckett and Paddington designer Tahra Zafar have refreshed it and added a hunky Saint Nick
22 October 2026
Amy Winehouse musical in development for West End
Stage show based on late singer reportedly set to feature her best-loved songs with involvement from her father Mitch
Judi Dench says sight loss means she can no longer perform but she is still ‘besotted by’ Shakespeare’s sonnets
Age-related macular degeneration has also left actor, 91, unable to read or recognise faces any more
‘Bodies, pornography and disgust’: did 2 Girls 1 Cup change the way a generation thinks about sex?
Martin Guerre review – return of Les Mis duo’s melodrama reveals a surprise new hero
West End to get another lesson from The History Boys two decades on
21 October 2026
860 review – Billy Crystal’s charisma powers rambling one-man play
Ilford Boy review – Barbra Streisand teaches teen to smile about the way we are
Our Friends in the North: The Thatcher Years review – old pals back on the toon as TV series gets squished
High School Musical review – Disney fave is sweet, slick and as squeaky clean as ever
20 October 2026
TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral review – gather in wonder at David Suchet’s excellent archbishop
The poet’s 1935 verse drama has its eccentricities but the meticulous star plays Thomas Becket with a Shakespearean relish
The Alonetimes review – frenetic, funny and exhilarating music theatre
Six performers navigate a disjointed world of online slang, loneliness and absurdity in the UK premiere of Jennifer Walshe and Philip Venables’ thrillingly original collaboration
Getting Ziggy with it: David Bowie’s alter egos inspire dance show that will transform his songs
Royal Exchange boss unveils new plays two years after damaging censorship row
Listen out for Lanny: can Max Porter’s mythic tale of a mulch-guzzler really be heard in this woodland?
19 October 2026
Other Desert Cities review – Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ed Harris shine in timely Broadway revival
‘A vigorous apologist for a cruel emperor’: Is Caryl Churchill’s explosive new play about Trump and his press officers?
