Alice: Return to Wonderland review – a wonderfully eccentric new rabbit hole to go down

Alice is a boring grownup at the start of this intelligent and catchy Christmas musical – then she’s whisked off to Wonderland again

Ms Holmes and Ms Watson – Apt 2B review: mysterious case of the joke-cracking Sherlock

This riff on Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective stories has flashes of promise but its comedy and purpose never land

Dog Man: The Musical, based on Dav Pilkey’s bestsellers, to be staged in London

Inspired by the series of irreverent comic books by the Captain Underpants creator, the show will run at the Southbank Centre in 2026

How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney? review – have yourself a merry little rumpus

This exuberant adaptation of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s picture book moves with the rhythm of a child’s racing imagination

Paddington musical in the West End is practically paw-fect, say theatre critics

Michael Bond’s beloved bear is the star of an eagerly anticipated new show at the Savoy theatre in London. Here is what the critics thought

Paddington: The Musical review – they’ve looked after this bear quite splendiferously

State-of-the-art animatronics, imaginative staging, fabulous performances and some marvellous songs about marmalade make for an evening that will fill you with joy and melt your heart

Where to start with Tom Stoppard: from Brazil to Leopoldstadt

The great playwright had a 60-year career in the theatre and also wrote scripts for radio and the screen – here are some of his very best

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy review – flimsy extravaganza needs deeper thought

The madcap sci-fi tale is retold on a lavish scale, complete with in-show merch, but it never really blasts off

The Little Mermaid review – underwater wonders cast a spell in mid-air

A fresh telling of Hans Christian Andersen’s story deploys circus skills and inventive design to create a memorable merworld

The Firework-Maker’s Daughter review – Philip Pullman’s fairytale is explosive fun

This spellbinding adaptation uses a bulging dramatic toolbox of clever effects and manages to be both epic and intimate

The Scouse Christmas Carol review – knockabout comedy with a potty mouth

Paul Duckworth’s sweary Scrooge has romantic history with Marley’s widow in a pun-heavy festive show

The play that changed my life: ‘It was frightening at first but The Inheritance let me discover myself’

Roles as EM Forster and a young, gay American dying of Aids in the 2018 play allowed an opportunity for deep personal and social reflection

Bill Bryson: ‘Ever since I was a little boy, I have pretended to be able to vaporise people I don’t like’

The American British author on pet peeves, the perils of fantasy dinner parties, and revisiting The Short History of Everything two decades later

Gasp-worthy, clunky, a moral problem? Critics react to The Hunger Games: On Stage

The reviews are in for the long-awaited adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ dystopian novel, presented in a purpose-built theatre in Canary Wharf

Hilary Mantel story imagining Margaret Thatcher’s assassination to be staged in Liverpool

Short story set in 1983, and published a year after the former prime minister’s death, considers ‘what happens when people feel they don’t have a voice’ says director John Young