Ilford Boy Tickets in London at the Donmar Warehouse
Ilford Boy is a new play by Danny Lee Wynter, directed by Tim Sheader, and it runs at the Donmar Warehouse from 10 October to 28 November 2026. Prices, the schedule, the cast, where to sit and what the Donmar has and has not published are all below.
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Who's Ilford Boy For?
Anyone who books new writing and likes getting to it first. This is a world premiere, and the second play by Danny Lee Wynter after Black Superhero at the Royal Court in 2023.
Anyone who has been meaning to try the Donmar. Two levels wrap a thrust stage that sits at floor level, and the front rows are within a few feet of the actors.
Anyone booking on a director. Tim Sheader runs the Donmar and this is a Donmar production, directed by him.
Not for you if you are expecting a musical. This is a straight play with music in the story.
What Ilford Boy Tickets Cost
The Donmar prices this by band, not by date. The same three numbers run the whole seven weeks.
| Performances | Price A | Price B | Price C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | £70 | £55 | £30 |
| First four performances | £65 | £50 | £25 |
The first four performances of the run are £5 less in every band.
A booking fee of £1.75 is added once per booking rather than per ticket.
Which seats sit in which band is set on this production's own seating plan. The Donmar rebuilds the auditorium for every show, so a band map you remember from something else you saw there does not carry across, and neither do the prices.
About Ilford Boy at the Donmar Warehouse
We do not know a huge amount about the show yet, but the Donmar describes it as a funny and moving drama about the ghosts that follow us, the families we choose, and the Streisand that helps us survive.
Danny Lee Wynter wrote it. He is an actor as well as a writer, Olivier-nominated for The Normal Heart at the National Theatre, and Ilford Boy is his second play.
Ted is played by Leo Whitfield-Harris, in his professional stage debut.
The Donmar has not issued age guidance or content warnings for this production, and both usually arrive around press night. If either decides your booking, take a date from 20 October.
What's Ilford Boy About?
East London, the 1990s. Ted Martin is a mixed-race teenager in a family that is loud, funny and hard work in roughly equal measure.
Patrick is what changes it. He turns up with style, jokes and a love of show tunes, and through him Ted meets people who take him seriously and a life with art in it starts to look possible.
Performance Schedule
Six evenings a week, with two matinees once the run settles. There is no Sunday performance.
| Day | Matinee | Evening |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | - | 7:30pm |
| Tuesday | - | 7:30pm |
| Wednesday | - | 7:30pm |
| Thursday | 2:30pm | 7:30pm |
| Friday | - | 7:30pm |
| Saturday | 2:30pm | 7:30pm |
| Sunday | - | - |
The Thursday and Saturday matinees start on 17 October, so the first week of previews is evenings only. If you are travelling in for an afternoon performance, 17 October is the earliest date that works.
Finish times are not published yet, because the running time has not been confirmed.
Best Seats for Ilford Boy
The Stalls, and the front rows of the middle block in particular. The stage at the Donmar is the floor of the auditorium, below the eye-line of the Stalls, and those seats get the view the production is built around.
In the Circle, the centre of rows A and B is the pick. A thick bar runs around the front of that level on all three sides, and the sides are where people notice it.
For value, ask about the seats just round to the side. The bands change quickly here.
Level by level is in the Tickets and Best Seats tab. Because the auditorium is rebuilt for every production, check the seating plan for your own date.
Cast and Creative Team
Leo Whitfield-Harris is Ted and Craig Stein is Patrick. Jodie McNee plays Jackie, Lindsey Coulson plays Eileen and Ria Zmitrowicz plays Tillie, with Cary Crankson, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr, Aaron Gill and Charlotte Jaconelli completing a company of nine.
Tim Sheader directs. He has been the Donmar's Artistic Director since March 2024.
The full company and the design team are in the Cast and Creatives tab.
Book Your Ilford Boy Tickets
A seven-week run, and the dates are going. Give us a ring on 020 7193 9050 before you plan the rest of the evening around it.
Book tickets • Call us on 020 7193 9050
FAQs
No. It is a play. Show tunes and Barbra Streisand matter to the characters and to the story, but there is no score and nobody sings.
No. Jodie McNee plays Jackie. Sinéad Matthews left the production in late August 2026 while she finishes recovering from an injury.
The Donmar has not published a running time. Its listing says to be confirmed, and on a new play the length is still being set during previews. Expect the figure around press night on 20 October.
Three bands: £70, £55 and £30, the same on every date of the run. Previews are cheaper: the first four performances are £65, £50 and £25.
The Donmar has published no age guidance for this production and its content warnings are still to be confirmed. What is fixed is the theatre's own rule that nobody under 10 is admitted to the auditorium at all.
It has been widely described in the press as semi-autobiographical, and Danny Lee Wynter was born in Barking, a few miles from the Ilford the play is set in. Neither he nor the Donmar has said it is his own story.
Leo Whitfield-Harris takes the title role in his professional stage debut. This is incredibly rare for a show of this nature at the Donmar.
Not sold out, but it is going quickly. One Thursday evening checked seven weeks ahead had about one place in seven left. If a specific date matters to you, book it rather than sitting on it.
The Donmar sells this production through its own Box Office. Its terms let it refuse admission on a ticket bought through an unauthorised third party, so a ticket from a resale site is a risk.
Latecomers, and anyone who leaves during the performance, watch on a monitor in the Circle bar. You go in at the interval if the production has one, and the Donmar has not confirmed whether this play does.
Two. A captioned performance on Monday 16 November at 7:30pm, and an audio described performance on Saturday 21 November at 2:30pm with a pre-show touch tour. Both sit in the last two weeks of the run.
The Donmar does not refund. It will exchange, or give you account credit, with at least 24 hours' notice. For a performance that has sold out it runs its own resale scheme and credits the seller within 72 hours.
Where to Sit for Ilford Boy
The stage here is the floor of the auditorium, not a platform, so it sits below the eye-line of the Stalls and the actors play down into them. Two levels, Stalls and Circle, wrap it on three sides.
The Stalls. The seats we would ask for, and the middle block at the front most of all: close and level with the action. The Circle sits over the back of the Stalls from row C, and you start to notice it at row D, where it takes the top of the set rather than any of the acting. It also traps the heat, so the front of the Stalls stays the coolest part of the auditorium.
The Circle. Nothing is built above it, so nothing is taken off the top of the picture. What does get in the way is a thick bar running round the front of the level on all three sides, at treble height in the corners. The centre of rows A and B is fine and is the pick up here. The sides are where the complaints come from, partly because of the bar and partly because the row in front leans forward to see past it.
The value seats. Round to the side of either level, usually sold as slightly restricted. Two seats next to each other can sit in different price bands, because the band has to change somewhere, and the one just over the line can be close to half the price of the best seats. The further round you go, the more you give up.
The Donmar's booking system flags those seats with one phrase, side view, potentially limited view, and it lands on the extreme ends of each level's wrap. The Box Office does not sell a seat as restricted until sightlines have been confirmed for that particular production, so a seat released later in the run is worth a look.
The auditorium is rebuilt for every show. A seat that was excellent for the last thing you saw here may not be for this one,. Check the seating plan for your own performance.
Row by row, with the levels and the sightlines set out in full, is in our Donmar Warehouse guide.
Dates & tickets
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Getting to the Donmar Warehouse
The Donmar Warehouse is at 41 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9LX.
The entrance catches people out. It is a small shop doorway with a neon sign above it, on the left as you come down Earlham Street from Seven Dials, past the entrances to the shopping arcade. Earlham Street is cobbled, with a pavement on both sides.
Covent Garden is about three minutes away on the Piccadilly line, Leicester Square about five, Tottenham Court Road and Holborn about eight, and Charing Cross about ten. Buses stop at Cambridge Circus, a few minutes up Earlham Street, rather than outside the theatre: the 14, 19, 24, 29, 38 and 176 by day, and the N5, N19, N20, N29, N38, N41 and N279 at night.
Arrive 15 to 20 minutes before, no later. There should not be much of a queue and you will get in quickly, but the entrance area is very small and it fills up.
The Donmar does not walk latecomers to their seats mid-scene, and there is no confirmed interval yet, so allow more time for the journey than you normally would.
Accessible performances of Ilford Boy:
- Captioned: Monday 16 November 2026, 7:30pm
- Audio described: Saturday 21 November 2026, 2:30pm, with a pre-show touch tour
No BSL interpreted or relaxed performance is scheduled. That is the pattern across the Donmar's whole season rather than an omission on this production.
Booking those, and the lift that serves both levels of the auditorium, are handled by the venue's own team rather than by us. Bars, bag rules and everywhere worth eating nearby are in our Donmar Warehouse guide.
Address
41 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9LX
Nearest Tube
Covent Garden
Ilford Boy Cast
| Role | Performer |
|---|---|
| Ted | Leo Whitfield-Harris |
| Patrick | Craig Stein |
| Jackie | Jodie McNee |
| Eileen | Lindsey Coulson |
| Trevor | Cary Crankson |
| Ken | Gershwyn Eustache Jnr |
| Raj | Aaron Gill |
| Ann | Charlotte Jaconelli |
| Tillie | Ria Zmitrowicz |
This is the company the Donmar announced for the run, and Leo Whitfield-Harris is making his professional stage debut in the title role.
Creative team
Written by Danny Lee Wynter. Directed by Tim Sheader.
Set design by Peter McKintosh, costume design by Ryan Dawson Laight, lighting by Aideen Malone and sound by Tony Gayle. Eamonn O'Dwyer is the composer. Ebony Molina is movement and intimacy director, Kate Waters is fight director, and casting is by Lotte Hines CDG.
Ilford Boy News
Press night is Tuesday 20 October 2026, ten days after the first preview. The notices come after it.
The Donmar named Ilford Boy in its 2026 season on 30 January 2026, and public booking opened on 6 February. Full casting followed on 22 July. In late August Jodie McNee joined the company as Jackie.
Danny Lee Wynter's first play, Black Superhero, opened at the Royal Court in March 2023. He is also an actor, and was nominated for an Olivier Award for The Normal Heart at the National Theatre. He founded Act For Change, the campaign group set up in 2014 to push for better representation on stage and screen.
Alongside the run, the production is giving away more than 1,800 free tickets to local schools, with artists in residence at five of them.
Ilford Boy
Donmar Warehouse