November on the London Stage: Paddington the Musical Debuts Its Beloved Bear, Bridgerton Season 4's Yerin Ha in The Maids and More

The openings are coming thick and fast throughout November, coupling adventurous new writing with high-profile, star-packed revivals from much-laureled directors. The Hunger Games finally reaches the stage, and the Old Vic’s A Christmas Carol is back for one last hurrah. Added to this heady mix is the hottest new musical of the year, which puts an iconic bear center stage. For more on the enticements over the weeks ahead, read on.

Maid to Order
The Australian director Kip Williams does notably well onstage with women. His solo play The Picture of Dorian Gray garnered Olivier and Tony Awards for solo performer Sarah Snook (and a 2025 directing Tony nod for Williams), and in February he is bringing Cynthia Erivo to the West End in a highly anticipated solo venture, Dracula. In between is his wild reimagining of Jean Genet’s subversive 1947 classic The Maids, now running at the Donmar Warehouse through November 29 with Lydia Wilson, Phia Saban and Bridgerton’s Yerin Ha all along for the highwire ride. “They’re asked to walk a tightrope together and to catch each other,” an admiring Williams said in an interview of his keenly adroit cast in a show that folds social influencers and TikTok into a breathless, tech-intensive psychodrama. “I’m very rigorous about how and when I use technology,” added Williams, whose Dorian Gray was a theatrical hall of mirrors very much made possible by tech. “The story itself has to lead me there.” As for the controversy that sometimes surrounds his work, Williams says bring it on: “A multiplicity of responses shows that a work of art is doing its job.”

Courting Success
Sophia Chetin-Leuner had a well-regarded Bush Theatre premiere last year with This Might Not Be It, and the 31-year-old is now represented across town with Porn Play, opening November 13 at the Royal Court’s intimate Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. Ambika Mod and Olivier winner Will Close (Dear England) head the cast under the keen directorial eye of Josie Rourke. The journey taken by her play has, said the warmly engaging author, “exceeded my expectations of where I thought I might be at this point in my career. This is a challenging play which is trying to push the boundaries, and I wrote it with the legacy of the Royal Court in mind.” Despite the gratifying fact that the run is entirely sold out, “there’s still pressure, there’s still hype," Chetin-Leuner told Broadway.com. "There are so many amazing people working on this that you obviously don’t want to be the weakest link.” Small chance of that.

Miller Time
Arthur Miller’s 1947 play All My Sons is rarely long-absent from the London stage and was last seen here in 2019, with Sally Field and Bill Pullman heading the cast. Here it comes again, directed by Tony winner Ivo van Hove, who has directed Miller to Tony-winning success in 2016 with A View from the Bridge followed shortly on Broadway by The Crucible. This earlier work boasts a starry ensemble headed by Bryan Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. 2019 Drama Desk Award winner Tom Glynn-Carney (The Ferryman) plays George Deever, the onetime neighbor of the grief-stricken Keller family at the play’s fraught center. “George in a way is this caged animal who gets to the Kellers’ house and is at breaking point,” Glynn-Carney said of the arc of his role in a staging that, as is the way with van Hove, promises to break with tradition. “Ivo’s work is always slightly outside the box; rest assured this won’t be like anything you’ve seen before.”

Double Vision
Most writers would be thrilled to have one show in a year, so imagine David Eldridge’s delight in having two plays opening within six days of one another. The English dramatist is first on offer at the National Theatre with End, a two-hander opening November 20 and boasting box office catnip in 2005 Oscar nominee Clive Owen (Closer) and Saskia Reeves (Apple TV’s Slow Horses). Six days later sees the London debut at @sohoplace of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, adapted from the 1963 John le Carré novel and first seen in August 2024 at the Chichester Festival Theatre south of London. “It’s a really lovely thing,” the eloquently spoken Eldridge said of the timing. “I’m working hard and trying to remember where I am today and tomorrow and to keep calm and focused.” End completes a triptych of plays that included Beginning and Middle, both already staged by the National, while Spy, starring Rory Keenan in Richard Burton’s onetime film role as Alec Leamas, marks the first time a novel from the mighty le Carré has come to the stage. Factor in Betrayal, his new spy drama for Britain’s ITV due to air early in 2026, and Eldridge can be forgiven for wanting a break: “It’s been a very very busy 18 months; by the time I get to Christmas, I’ll need a good lie down.”

Bear With It
Paddington the Musical has been five years in the making and is at last opening November 30 at the Savoy Theatre after a month of previews, during which news is bound to leak out as to how the bear of the title is being shown onstage. (As of this writing, no one knows). “What I can tell you is when Tom [Fletcher, the composer-lyricist] and I first met the bear in rehearsals, both of us burst into tears because we couldn’t believe how much Paddington was in the room,” Jessica Swale, the show’s delightful book writer, told Broadway.com. “I was just back from a big American movie packed with icons”—Merv with Zooey Deschanel, Patricia Heaton and Charlie Cox—“and meeting Paddington was probably the most starstruck I’ve ever felt in my life.” The capacious cast includes such West End veterans as Bonnie Langford and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt under the direction of Luke Sheppard (& Juliet), and the show’s ending will be joyous. “I really believe in the power of entertainment to remind us that life can be better and we can be better as people,” said Swale. “I only write stories with happy endings.”