The festive classic to end all classics, no holiday season is complete without taking your seats for a showing of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol - and this year, Mark Gatiss' version of Dickens' winter ghost story is coming to haunt the Alexandra Palace Theatre again in 2025. A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story - a thrillingly atmospheric take on the tale - promises to sweep you up in this supernatural Victorian world, with the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformative supernatural Christmas Eve visitations.

Buddy the Elf is stepping into the Aldwych Theatre this holiday season, all the way from the North Pole. This hit musical follows the hilarious and touching story of a man who was mistakenly brought up as an elf in Santa's workshop and sets off for New York in order to find his real father. Cue some run-ins with a department store manager, his first taste of love with a fellow shop worker and trying to win over his cynical, business-like father in the run up to the holidays. When Christmas is threatened however, will Buddy be able to save the day?

FEE-FI-FO-FUM we smell a panto bubbling with fun! The panto classic Jack and the Beanstalk comes to Islington this year with more laughs, lavish costumes, and a local twist to the tale! In Christmas 2025 get ready to embark on a magical adventure with a generous helping of whipped cream for this year's giant Islington pantomime!

The wildly successful live stage adaptation of Raymond Briggs' best-loved children's cartoon marks its 28th year at the Peacock this Christmas! On a cold winter's night, a young boy gets the surprise of his life, when the snowman that he built that day magically comes to life! Together, they embark on a wondrous adventure and escape peril from the troublesome Jack Frost. A must-see for youngsters and adults alike, this will relight your Christmas spirit!

Matthew Bourne's Olivier award-winning The Red Shoes makes a welcome return to Sadler's Wells this Christmas. Based on the 1948 Powell and Pressburger film, which is in turn based on the tragic fairytale by Hans Christian Anderson, The Red Shoes is the story of a talented young dancer who finds herself torn between love and her career, with heartbreaking consequences.

All aboard! Gilbert and Sullivan's delightful slapstick tale about over-the-top nationalism, personal ambition and, of course, a love triangle across the social classes of British society and the Royal Navy comes to the English National Opera! Directed by Cal McCrystal and led by conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren, award winning baritone Neal Davis stars as the Rt. Hon Sir Joseph Porter, with John Savournin as Captain Corcoran and Henner Mun as Josephine. HMS Pinafore first premiered in London in 1878 and was Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth collaboration, and their first international sensation; don't miss it as it sails back into London!