The best new London theatre for 2022 – shows not to miss

This year, the Globe’s traditional end-of-summer new play is a historical drama about Joan of Arc, written by actor and playwright Charlie Josephine. It’ll also offer an exploration of Joan’s gender identity, with Joan explicitly depicted as non-binary, and the role played by non-binary actor Isobel Thom. 

Astonishingly, US playwright Jonathan Spector’s comedy about a liberal school board that falls into acrimony when a student gets mumps and the county health department demands all unvaccinated pupils must quarantine premiered off-Broadway before the pandemic…

The title tells you that you’re getting a version of Anton Chekhov’s immortal play ‘The Cherry Orchard’ – and the title is right! What it doesn’t tell you is that Vinay Patel’s all-Asian cast adaptation of ‘The Cherry Orchard’ is a sci-fi set in space. 

Belgian director Ivo van Hove returns to the Young Vic with the UK premiere of his adaptation of Édouard Louis’s book ‘Who Killed My Father’. An angry, tender portrait of the author’s father’s decline, Van Hove has adapted the book into a monologue which will be performed by the great Dutch actor Hans Kesting. 

If the National Theatre under Rufus Norris has steered relatively clear of straight versions of canonical classics by anyone other than Shakespeare, then a massive revival of Arthur Miller’s seminal allegorical drama about the Salem witch trials never goes amiss. Brendan Cowell stars as troubled hero John Procter, and Eric Doherty will play Abigail.

Jonathan Freedland’s verbatim play promises to look at ‘the roots and damning legacy of antisemitism in Britain’, with a reference to ‘a dose of English irony’ making it fairly clear that Jeremy Corbyn’s troubled tenure as leader of the Labour party is likely to come under scrutiny. 

Announced way back in 2019 and naturally scuppered by the pandemic, here’s another piece of unfinished theatrical business finally making it to the stage. ‘John Gabriel Borkman’ is, of course, Henrik Ibsen’s classic about a disgraced, embittered businessman plotting his comeback. Nicholas Hytner directs Bridge regular Simon Russell Beale, with support from Lia Williams.

The Donmar’s 2022 season is notable for two huge UK premieres of US smashes: first Lucas Hnath’s Ibsen sequel ‘A Doll’s House, Part 2’, and then this ten times Tony-winning musical by David Yazbek and Itamar Moses. 

‘My Neighbour Totoro’ is a lavish new adaptation of the legendary Japanese animation Studio Ghibli’s 1988 film about a pair of young sisters who move to the countryside for the summer while their mother recovers from an illness. There, they encounter a world of magical creatures, including the eponymous Totoro, an ancient forest protector.

Robert Icke's acclaimed final show as Almeida associate director gets its extremely long-awaited West End transfer.

David Tennant’s near-obsessive latter-day penchant for playing antiheroes continues with Dominic Cooke’s revival of Scots playwright CP Taylor’s great 1982 play ‘Good’.

Clint Dyer’s production of Shakespeare’s tragic tale of racially charged jealousy and revenge will star Olivier-winning ‘Hamilton’ star Giles Terera in the title role, with Rosy McEwen as Desdemona and Paul Hilton as the villainous Iago.

Does the world need an all-singing version of the life story of Nelson Mandela? We’re about to find out! 

If it often feels like London at Christmas is simply wall-to-wall stage versions of Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’, then it still seems unlikely that anybody had Dolly Parton writing a new musical version on their 2022 bingo card…

Thirty years on from the cult musical film and ten from the unexpectedly successful Broadway version, Disney’s ‘Newsies’ is finally coming to London…