Ten Broadway shows we want to see in the UK in 2024

Happy New Year to all our readers from all of us here at WhatsOnStage!

As the wheels start turning, setting 2024 in motion, there is already a treasure trove of confirmed shows (new musicals, new plays, musical revivals and play revivals) for the months ahead, but that won’t stop us from dreaming about the possibility of even more theatrical treats!

We certainly love our home-grown productions, but the UK also constantly has its eye on our friends stateside and welcomes celebrated shows from Broadway with open arms. 2024 will see productions such as Plaza Suite (starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick), Mean Girls and MJ The Musical grace West End stages, but we have high hopes that a few more may cross the pond.

We’re keeping our hopes high for the following ten shows…

1. Beetlejuice

Us wishing for a West End transfer of Beetlejuice seems to have become an annual tradition here at WhatsOnStage, but with Tim Burton’s long-overdue film sequel on the way this September, we’re keeping our spirits high (pun intended) that Warner Bros Theatre Ventures see 2024 as the perfect time to finally pull the trigger on a UK premiere! Beetlejuice… Beetlejuice… Beetlejuice, please!

2. Cost of Living

No, this isn’t a drama about the turmoil that currently faces UK residents when they receive their energy bills, but the 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner by Martyna Majok that made its Broadway debut to great acclaim at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2022. It explores two pairs of relationships between disabled and able persons: Ani, who became a quadriplegic following a tragic accident, and her ex-husband Eddie, and graduate student John, who lives with cerebral palsy, and his carer Jess.

3. The Cottage

Sandy Rustin’s “positively delightful comedy” The Cottage enjoyed a well-received run at Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theater this past summer and with more than a whiff of Noël Coward and Oscar Wilde about it and with its 1920’s English setting, we think this frivolous piece – about sex, love and betrayal – and the West End would get on like a house (or a cottage) on fire!

4. Fat Ham

Yet another Pulitzer Prize for Drama winner on our list is Fat Ham, which began life in Philadelphia in 2021 and made its Broadway debut this past spring. James Ijames’ modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet follows a young queer Black man named Juicy, who is haunted by the ghost of his father during a barbecue, demanding that his son avenge his untimely murder. To transfer or not to transfer, that is now the question!

5. Hell’s Kitchen

“Guaranteed to send you into the streets singing“, Alicia Keys’ new jukebox musical Hell’s Kitchen is currently wowing audiences off-Broadway at the Public Theater until 14 January, but this hot-ticket theatrical event has already confirmed its Broadway transfer for this coming spring. Here’s hoping that the show, inspired by the singer-songwriter’s early years in Manhattan Plaza, receives a UK transfer quicker than you can cry: “Girl on Fire”!

6. Kimberly Akimbo

Kimberly Akimbo is “the most satisfying new musical in ages” according to our colleagues across the pond and it seems the Tony Awards voting committee agreed with them, with the show being crowned Best Musical this past summer. David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori’s piece is a tender tale about a teenage girl, who suffers from a condition that causes her body to age rapidly, and her search to find happiness in the world. Could the musical’s next “Great Adventure” be a UK staging?

7. Parade

Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s 1998 musical made its way back to Broadway this past February in a “simple yet stunning production“, following its stint at New York City Center. Documenting the 1913 trial and imprisonment (and subsequent lynching) of Jewish American Leo Frank, the show triumphed in the Best Revival of a Musical category at this year’s Tony Awards. Although we’ve had London stagings in 2007 and 2011, this production had two beautiful performances by Micaela Diamond (The Cher Show) and Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen) at its very heart, and we’ve got all our fingers crossed that they might reprise their roles on these shores in the not-too-distant future.

8. Spamalot

We believe it’s high time we looked on the bright side of life again! It’s been two long since Monty Python’s musical crowd-pleaser Spamalot graced the West End stage, and if we can’t get the current cast of Broadway stalwarts to cross the pond (with clashing coconut shells in tow), then at the very least, can we have Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso) reprise her WhatsOnStage Award-nominated performance as the Lady of the Lake? Please and thank you!

9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

There’s “No Place Like London” for Broadway’s current revival of the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler classic about everyone’s favourite butchering barber and his questionable pie-making partner. We’re praying this “superb staging” of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street makes a journey to its spiritual home sooner rather than later and if original cast members Josh Groban (Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet of 1812) and Annaleigh Ashford (Sunday in the Park with George) decide to come along with it, there’ll be no complaints from us!

10. Take Me Out

Second Stage’s revival of Take Me Out hit a home run when it triumphed with both critics and audiences alike in the spring of 2022. Richard Greenberg’s “solid knock out of the ballpark” drama, which centres around an openly gay player in Major League Baseball, not only earned the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play last year but a second mounting on Broadway in the autumn. Although the sport may not be as popular on these shores, we’re sure the piece’s universal themes and the performances of Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family) and Jesse Williams (Grey’s Anatomy) would certainly make this transfer a winner!

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