The best Christmas shows you can still get tickets for

From pantomimes to big-budget musicals and yuletide classics, Alice Saville has the skinny on 2025 festive fun

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Theatres all over the capital pull in their biggest audiences when Christmas rolls round, and small wonder.

There’s something about the wintry chill outside that makes us long to huddle close, get warm, and tell stories. And that doesn’t have to mean the cringey childhood anecdotes that'll get their thousandth airing at the Christmas dinner table. London’s theatremakers are forever cooking up deliciously fresh tales to entrance you and your loved ones, laced with edgy wit and served up with serious style.

Our pick of the best festive shows is a mix of bold new creations and returning favourites that have been recast and reimagined for 2025. So plan a child’s first theatre outing. Assemble friends for a ribald night of panto fun. See a festive movie fave burst into life on stage. ’Tis the season to gather, and this city’s theatres have got plenty to lure you in from the cold.

Ballet Shoes – The National Theatre

The name might suggest this production is squarely aimed at little girls whose every possession is pastel pink. The reality is more colourful and complex. The National Theatre has turned Noel Streatfeild’s 1936 novel into a gloriously eccentric show about finding your chosen family. Three orphaned kids grow up surrounded by their mysterious benefactor’s collection of fossils and dinosaur bones. And soon, they each unearth dreams of their own, of dancing, being an actor – and of zooming into a career as a mechanic. It’s offbeat, very witty and there’s a pretty high chance that boys of all ages will enjoy it, too. Until 21 February.

Beauty and the Beast: A Horny Love Story – Charing Cross Theatre