The Hunger Games: On Stage at a glance

Show
The Hunger Games: On Stage
Venue
Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre
Address
Water Street, Canary Wharf, London E14 5GX
Nearest station
Canary Wharf (Elizabeth line, Jubilee line, DLR) — short walk
Genre
Drama (dystopian / immersive spectacle)
Running time
2 hours 35 minutes, including one interval
Age guidance
12+ (under-16s must be accompanied; under-3s not admitted)
Booking until
24 October 2026
Price range
From £37 (up to £208)
Adapted by
Conor McPherson
Director
Matthew Dunster
Based on
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and the Lionsgate film

Expert Review: The Hunger Games: On Stage

4.2
★★★★★

LTH Expert Rating

Reviewed by the London Theatre Hub editorial team. Last updated: 7 May 2026.

The Verdict

The Hunger Games: On Stage is the most technically ambitious theatrical production London has seen in decades, possibly ever. The Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre — built from scratch in eight months at a reported cost of £26 million, using six cranes to assemble 42,000 pieces of steel on reclaimed land — houses a 1,200-seat theatre-in-the-round with London's largest hydraulic stage, aerial rigging capable of supporting four tonnes, seats that move during the performance, and a ceiling from which tributes zip-line, fight, and fall. When the flaming chariot carrying Katniss and Peeta soars over the audience's heads, the effect is genuinely breathtaking. There is nothing else like it in London, and possibly in the world.

The critical response has divided fairly sharply between the spectacle — where all reviewers agree it delivers — and the drama, where opinions have been more mixed. The broadsheet critics generally felt that the production's emphasis on its technical achievements came at the cost of emotional depth: the feeling that excitement was substituted for the grief, anger, and moral complexity that make Collins' original so compelling. These are honest criticisms and worth weighing. But they apply to theatre critics attending on press night, typically making note-perfect comparisons against their considered understanding of what Conor McPherson can do at his best. They don't speak for the audiences who have been filling the venue since November 2025 and extending its run through their demand.

What's clear is that as a live event — an experience of scale, surprise, and spectacle that puts the audience inside the Hunger Games in a way no other medium has managed — the show is exceptional. Mia Carragher's Katniss anchors the spectacle with a performance of real intelligence and physical commitment. The production doesn't ask you to forget the films or the books: it asks you to experience the story in a new dimension. For the right audience — Hunger Games fans of any age, families seeking something unlike anything in conventional theatre — that offer is genuinely exciting.

What Makes It Special

  • A purpose-built theatre unlike anything in London. The Troubadour Canary Wharf was constructed specifically for this production. Sections are named after Panem's twelve districts. When a tribute dies, their district's seating section flashes red. Audience members in Districts 1 and 2 have seats that move during the performance. This is not a theatre hosting a show — it is a show that built a theatre.
  • The aerial and stunt work. Tributes fight on walls, at 90-degree angles in front of the upper balcony, and overhead via ziplines. The flaming chariot sequence is reported by virtually every reviewer — critical and fan alike — as a stunning set-piece. Performer flying was designed by John Maddox for Suspended Illusions. The fight direction is by Kev McCurdy.
  • John Malkovich as President Snow. Malkovich appears on screen at every performance — creating a stage-meets-screen hybrid that gives the Capitol sequences a genuinely cinematic quality. His presence is a significant creative and commercial coup.
  • Mia Carragher as Katniss. The Irish actress brings intelligence and physicality to the role that avoids direct comparison with Jennifer Lawrence's film performance. Critics who had reservations about the production as drama consistently praised Carragher as its best asset.
  • Conor McPherson and Matthew Dunster's credentials. McPherson is an Olivier Award-winning playwright (Girl from the North Country, The Weir). Dunster directed 2:22 A Ghost Story and Hangmen. That both chose this project signals serious creative intent, whatever one thinks of the result.

You'll love it if you...

  • Are a Hunger Games fan wanting to experience the story in a genuinely new way — the immersive staging puts you inside Panem
  • Want London's most technically spectacular theatrical experience, full stop
  • Are bringing teenagers who know the books or films — this is one of the most exciting nights out for that audience
  • Prioritise spectacle, scale, and live-event energy over character-driven drama
  • Want something completely unlike conventional West End theatre

It might not be for you if you...

  • Expect the emotional depth of the books — critics broadly found the adaptation prioritises spectacle over feeling
  • Are not familiar with the source material — the adaptation assumes knowledge of the story
  • Prefer intimate character-driven theatre — this is a 1,200-seat immersive spectacle
  • Are sensitive to loud sound effects, strobe lighting, or aerial stunts directly overhead
  • Are bringing children under 12 — the violence and intensity of the Games sequences are firmly 12+

Best for

  • Hunger Games fans
  • Families (12+)
  • Teenagers
  • Spectacle seekers
  • Immersive theatre fans
  • Tourists

Less suited to those seeking traditional drama or unfamiliar with the Hunger Games universe.

Critical Reception

The Hunger Games: On Stage opened in November 2025 to a split critical reception. Reviewers were in broad agreement that the production's technical achievements were extraordinary — the purpose-built venue and its staging effects drew consistent praise. The division was over whether the drama matched the spectacle. Broadsheet critics generally felt it did not; audience response has been significantly warmer, with the production extended through October 2026 due to demand. Verified critical ratings:

  • The Guardian ★★★
  • WhatsOnStage ★★★★
  • The Observer ★★★
  • The Independent ★★★
  • The Times ★★
  • The Telegraph ★★
  • Hollywood Reporter — "London's hottest new theatre ticket"

Source: published reviews of the opening night production, November 2025. Audience response has been substantially more positive than the critical consensus, driving an extension of nearly a year.

Everything You Need to Know

What happens in The Hunger Games: On Stage?

The production follows the story of Suzanne Collins' first Hunger Games novel. The world is the nation of Panem — what remains of North America after an unspecified catastrophe — divided into a wealthy Capitol and twelve impoverished districts. As punishment for a past rebellion, each district is required annually to offer two young tributes, one boy and one girl, to compete in the Hunger Games: a brutal, televised fight to the death watched by the entire nation.

The reaping

In District 12, the poorest of the districts, Katniss Everdeen is a teenage girl who has been hunting and trading illegally to feed her family since her father's death in a mining accident. At the annual reaping, her younger sister Prim is chosen as tribute. Katniss volunteers to take her place — an almost unheard-of act of sacrifice that immediately marks her as different. The male tribute from District 12 is Peeta Mellark, the baker's son who once threw Katniss a burnt loaf of bread when she was starving.

The Capitol

Katniss and Peeta are transported to the Capitol, where they are prepared for the Games by their assigned mentor Haymitch — himself a past winner, now a cynical drunk — and styled by Cinna, whose extraordinary costume design turns them into media phenomena: the tributes on fire. The production's flaming chariot sequence — where Katniss and Peeta's chariot soars over the audience's heads — is the production's most celebrated visual moment.

The Games

The Hunger Games themselves unfold in an artificial arena controlled by the Gamemakers. Twenty-four tributes enter; one can leave. The production's theatre-in-the-round staging, aerial rigging, and hydraulic stage transform the Troubadour Canary Wharf into the arena itself, with the audience positioned as the watching Capitol crowds. Tributes fight on walls and overhead as well as on the stage floor. When a tribute dies, their district's seating section flashes red.

Katniss and Peeta

The adaptation is built on the developing relationship between Katniss and Peeta — and on Katniss's growing awareness that survival in the Hunger Games requires performing for an audience as much as fighting in an arena. The production incorporates elements from later in the series, with McPherson given permission by Collins to draw on details from the subsequent novels and the prequel Sunrise on the Reaping.