A sweet transvestite, a man in search of redemption and everyone’s favourite Torquay hotelier, Basil Fawlty, head to Edinburgh this month, while Broadway royalty reign in London.
What better way to start 2026 than with a trip to the theatre.
Happy New Year, folks. Here’s to uncovering some great shows in 2026 and, unlike years gone by when theatres spent most of January dark, now you can leap right in as Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show (6-10 January) descends on The Playhouse. Actually, it’s not so much a leap as a step to the right, or maybe a jump to the left. Yes, it’s time to do The Time Warp again as the world’s best loved cult musical returns to the Capital to kick off the year at Greenside Place in outrageous style.
Pretty good timing really as the production, which tells the story of all American sweethearts Brad and Janet and their encounter with transvestite alien scientist, Dr Frank N Furter, is often described as an adult pantomime, and we are still in panto season, albeit just.
Anyway, Neighbours heart-throb Jason Donovan stars as Frank N Furter once more, which always guarantees a great night, he is up there in my Top 5 actors to have played the role and I’ve lost count of the number I’ve seen don fishnets and basques since being introduced to the show at The Playhouse way back in 1986. Then Bobby Crush was Frank N Furter and Leith’s very own Kinny Gardner played Riff Raff.
Of course, half the fun of The Rocky Horror Show comes from the audience (who often dress up in less clothes than the cast) and their timely interjections throughout the action. Sexy, sassy and laugh out loud funny, it’s well worth a look, just ask the 35 million theatre-goers who have already seen it.
Running time 2 hours including interval. Tickets https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/the-rocky-horror-show/edinburgh-playhouse/
If you are a fan of author Stephen King, pop over to the Royal Lyceum this month where the stage version of The Shawshank Redemption (20-24 January) returns to where it all started. The acclaimed production began its life on the Fringe way back in 2013. At the time it followed a trend to cast stand-up comics in Fringe plays, a trend that continues to this day on television, usually with fairly dismal results. So it’s good to see Bill Kenwright Ltd have opted to cast three strong actors to lead the company for this touring production.
First up is Scotland’s very own Joe McFadden, of Heartbeat and Holby City fame, he also won the 2017 series of Strictly Come Dancing, then comes RSC and Royal Court actor Ben Onwukwe, and finally, Coronation Street and Emmerdale favourite Bill Ward, who completes the star billing.
The stage play of the hit movie, based on Stephen King’s 1982 novella, examines friendship and hope behind the claustrophobic bars of a maximum-security facility: Despite protests of his innocence, Andy Dufresne is handed a double life sentence for the brutal murders of his wife and her lover. Incarcerated in the notorious Shawshank facility, he quickly learns that no one can survive alone. Striking up an unlikely friendship with the prison fixer Red, things start to take a slight turn for the better. However, when Warden Stammas decides to bully Andy into subservience and exploit his talents for accountancy, a desperate plan is quietly hatched…
Running time 2 hours 15 minutes including interval. Tickets https://lyceum.org.uk/events/the-shawshank-redemption
If it’s a good belly laugh you enjoy, then head back to The Playhouse at the end of the month when the series that the Radio Times crowned the ‘Greatest British Sitcom of All Time’ takes to the stage more than 50 years after it first graced TV screens.
Fresh from its sell-out West End season, Fawlty Towers – The Play (27-31 January) finds Basil (Danny Bayne), the bumbling Major (Paul Nicholas) and Polly (Joanne Clifton), joined by an 18-strong cast as they bring to life all your favourite moments from the show’s unforgettable 12 episodes, adapted for the production by no less than John Cleese himself. With chaos and calamity at every turn you can almost hear Sybil’s anguished cries of ‘BASIL’ already. Just remember, don’t mention the…
Running time 1 hour and 50 minutes including interval. Tickets https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/fawlty-towers-the-play/edinburgh-playhouse/
Heading to London? Then it’s time to say “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome” as January’s theatre break recommendation is Cabaret, at the Kit Kat Club, also known as London’s Playhouse Theatre, where there’s a last chance to see Broadway stars Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada, as the Emcee and Sally Bowles respectively, in Rebecca Frecknell’s ground-breaking 2021 reimagining of Kander & Ebb’s dark musical.
Based on John Van Druten’s play I Am A Camera, which itself was based on the 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood, Cabaret transports audiences back to 1929 and the last days of the Weimar Republic, where the hedonistic Kit Kat Club is the last bastion of individuality and creative freedom.
In this fully immersive and occasionally interactive reimaging of the musical you’ll find yourself in the Kit Kat Club as a chilling study of the rise of Nazism and the fall of Germany into far-right totalitarianism unfolds around you.
Grammy Award winning Carney, who was also the original Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark on Broadway, makes for a chilling Emcee, while Nobelzada is quite mesmeric as Sally Bowles. Only appearing for a limited season, they both finish on 24 January, it’s been quite a time for the pair who married earlier in the run and have since played to rave reviews. I was delighted to be invited to attend their Gala Night and neither disappointed – read all about the Cabaret immersive experience Must SeeTheatre.com. https://mustseetheatre.com/broadway-royalty-welcomed-to-londons-west-end-with-champagne-gala/
And so, we’re off, and as a third year of Liam Rudden’s Must See Theatre in The Edinburgh Reporter begins, I’d like to thank you for reading. It’s great to have you here and do please check out MustSeeTheatre.com for more of my reviews, news and views.
Until next month, happy theatre-going.
Líam
