Theatre
News
Side by Side by Sondheim revival to come to London this winter
The musical revue by the late great Stephen Sondheim returns later this year
Side by Side by Sondheim will be revived in London this year for its 50th anniversary. The musical revue premiered in the West End in 1976 and features numbers from across Sondheim’s oeuvre, including songs from hit shows like West Side Story, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Gypsy and more.
Amanda Noar will direct the London revival alongside associate director and dramaturg Isaac Bernier-Doyle and musical director Harry Style. The show will feature set design by Ruby Boswell-Green, lighting design by Simon Jackson and costume design by Hannah Danson.
The show will take place at Upstairs at the Gatehouse from 10 December 2026 until 17 January 2027. The cast, set to be a quartet of “all-singing, all-dancing, all piano-playing performers”, is yet to be announced.
Butt and Bernier-Doyle commented: “Having explored Sondheim’s late work with Road Show in 2024, we couldn’t resist rewinding to the other end of the timeline to spend this holiday season immersed in the first act of his extraordinary career. Half a century after Side by Side by Sondheim first opened, we can’t wait to welcome another hundred people to the top of Highgate Hill each night to bask in the warm glow of some of the smartest, deepest, and least festive songs they’ll hear all winter.”
Regarded as the composer who reinvented the American musical, Sondheim is a ubiquitous figure, with theatres named after him in the West End and on Broadway, and multiple Tony, Olivier and Grammy Awards to his name, as well as a Pulitzer Prize and a Presidential Medal of Freedom. His many hit shows include West Side Story, Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday In The Park With George and Into The Woods.
