Oxford Events
Stage Watch: Sinatra, The Truth, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, Million Dollar Quartet, & Silence of the Lambs
The five-show line-up brings together West End musicals, sharp-edged comedy, contemporary drama and a landmark psychological thriller. From the birth of rock ’n’ roll and the enduring appeal of Frank Sinatra to the secrets that shape relationships and the women whose lives intersect in a Harlem hair salon, these productions explore the stories people tell, the identities they inhabit and the moments that change them.
With a world stage premiere arriving in Oxford and limited London engagements featuring familiar names from stage and screen, this selection offers a mix of musical nostalgia, theatrical reinvention and gripping storytelling for the months ahead.
Sinatra the Musical
Aldwych Theatre, London.
Booking from 03 June 2026 to 10 April 2027. Running time of 2 hours 45 minutes.
Save up to 48% on booking in week commencing 12 October
The voice behind some of popular music’s most enduring standards takes centre stage in this new musical tracing Frank Sinatra’s rise, fall and remarkable return to prominence. Beginning on New Year’s Eve in 1942, the story follows the young Italian-American singer as a career-defining performance propels him towards national fame, while his private life becomes increasingly complicated by his marriage to Nancy Sinatra and his relationship with Hollywood star Ava Gardner.
Written by two-time Tony Award winner Joe DiPietro and directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, the production combines biography with a catalogue of more than 20 songs, including That’s Life, One for My Baby, The Best Is Yet to Come, and I’ve Got the World on a String. Joel Harper-Jackson plays Sinatra, with Ana Villafañe as Ava Gardner and Phoebe Panaretos as Nancy Sinatra.
Rather than simply revisiting a familiar musical legacy, the show explores the tensions between public image, personal ambition and the private costs of fame.
Best for: Sinatra devotees, fans of classic American songbooks and audiences drawn to biographical musicals.
Good to know: The production runs for nearly three hours. Age guidance is 13+. Content includes swearing, mild violence, smoking, nudity, haze and potentially strobe-like lighting effects.
The Truth
Theatre Royal Haymarket, London.
A 12-week West End engagement from July 2027. Running time of 90 minutes, without interval.
How much honesty can a relationship withstand? Florian Zeller’s Olivier-nominated comedy returns to the West End with a sharply constructed examination of infidelity, friendship and the stories people tell to protect themselves.
At its centre is a man caught in a complicated affair, where loyalties shift, and suspicion spreads beyond the couple directly involved. As secrets emerge, the boundaries between truth and deception become increasingly difficult to distinguish. The play’s tension lies not simply in discovering who has lied, but in questioning whether complete honesty is always as straightforward or desirable as it appears.
The returning cast brings together Stephen Mangan, Ardal O’Hanlon, Sarah Hadland and Janie Dee. Mangan’s screen and stage experience, O’Hanlon’s comic timing and Hadland’s familiarity to television audiences provide a strong ensemble for Zeller’s intricate writing, in which apparently ordinary conversations can carry a second, more revealing meaning.
Best for: Admirers of sophisticated comedy, relationship dramas and plays that leave audiences debating what they would do in the characters’ place.
Good to know: The 90-minute running time makes this a compact evening at the theatre. Age guidance is 12+, with mild adult themes.
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding
Lyric Hammersmith, London.
Limited run to 29 January. Running time: 90 minutes, without interval.
A Harlem hair-braiding salon becomes the lively setting for Jocelyn Bioh’s comedy-drama about work, friendship, identity and the ambitions of women building lives far from the countries they once called home.
Over one sweltering summer’s day, Jaja’s draws a steady stream of customers seeking elaborate hairstyles, while its West African immigrant braiders navigate demanding clients, personal secrets, romantic complications and the pressures of making a living. The salon is both workplace and meeting point: a space where humour and gossip sit alongside vulnerability, and where individual dreams collide with the realities of life in New York.
Bioh’s writing brings the rhythms of everyday conversation to the foreground, allowing the characters’ personalities and relationships to emerge through the bustle of the shop. The result is a portrait of a community that is neither idealised nor reduced to its struggles, with its warmth and exuberance inseparable from the challenges its women face.
Director Monique Touko reunites with Bioh following their work on School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. Together, they bring a distinctive perspective to stories about African identity, female friendship and the experience of finding one’s place in a changing city.
Best for: Audiences interested in contemporary writing, character-led comedy and stories exploring migration, community and women’s lives.
Good to know: The production is recommended for ages 14+. Tickets were listed as unavailable in the supplied booking information, so check the theatre’s current listings for availability and the confirmed final performance date.
Million Dollar Quartet
The Arts at Marble Arch, London.
Booking from 04 September to 06 December 2026. Running time 2 hours 5 minutes.
One recording session, four emerging legends and a collection of songs that helped define modern popular music provide the foundation for Million Dollar Quartet, the Tony Award-nominated musical returning to London for a limited season.
The story takes audiences to Memphis on 4 December 1956, when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins unexpectedly came together at Sun Records. Their impromptu jam session became one of rock ’n’ roll’s most celebrated encounters, bringing together musicians whose careers would follow very different paths.
The production recreates the energy of that meeting through live performance and a soundtrack featuring Blue Suede Shoes, Fever, Walk the Line, Hound Dog and Great Balls of Fire. Darren Day stars as Sam Phillips, the record producer whose instinct for emerging talent helped shape the sound of a generation.
The appeal extends beyond nostalgia. The musical explores the rivalries, friendships and commercial pressures surrounding the birth of a new musical movement, when country, gospel, blues and early rock ’n’ roll converged in a recording studio.
Best for: Live-music enthusiasts, fans of 1950s rock ’n’ roll and audiences who prefer their musicals driven by a live band and familiar songs.
Good to know: Age guidance is eight and above. The engagement is scheduled to end on 6 December 2026, so this is the most time-sensitive booking in the line-up.
The Silence of the Lambs
New Theatre Oxford.
19 to 24 October 2026. Running time 2 hours 15 minutes, including interval.
Thomas Harris’s landmark psychological thriller arrives on stage for its world premiere, bringing the unsettling relationship between FBI trainee Clarice Starling and imprisoned psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter to a live audience in Oxford.
Sent to interview Lecter in the hope that his formidable intelligence will help the FBI catch another killer, Starling finds herself drawn into a dangerous exchange. As the search for Buffalo Bill intensifies and another victim remains in danger, Lecter offers information at a price: he wants access to Starling’s own memories and vulnerabilities. The investigation becomes a psychological contest in which the pursuit of a murderer is inseparable from the risk of being manipulated by one.
John Partridge plays Lecter, with Mollie Gallagher as Starling, Oliver Farnworth as Agent Jack Crawford and Sam Jackson as Buffalo Bill. The adaptation is written by award-winning playwright Gina Gionfriddo and directed by Nikolai Foster, whose production brings the novel’s disturbing characters and claustrophobic tension into a theatrical setting.
Translating such a familiar work to the stage presents a particular challenge: the suspense must be sustained without the cinematic techniques audiences associate with the story. The production’s live setting offers a different kind of proximity to its characters, placing their exchanges and shifting power dynamics at the heart of the experience.
Best for: Psychological-thriller enthusiasts, crime-fiction readers and audiences drawn to dark, tension-filled drama.
Good to know: Recommended for ages 15 and above; under-16s must attend with an adult. Content warnings include threats, murder, disturbing material, depictions of human remains, sexual references and harassment, very strong language including historically contextual homophobic language, flashing lights, haze, loud noises and gunshots. Audio description and captioning are provided.