Music · 16 September 2026
Sam Smith London Coliseum Residency Brings Pop Star Home
The Sam Smith London Coliseum residency continues tonight, with the British star transforming one of the capital’s most famous theatres into an unusually intimate home for their latest chapter of pop music. Smith is playing eight nights at the London Coliseum as part of the To Be Free residency series, ...
The Sam Smith London Coliseum residency continues tonight, with the British star transforming one of the capital’s most famous theatres into an unusually intimate home for their latest chapter of pop music.
Smith is playing eight nights at the London Coliseum as part of the To Be Free residency series, with tonight’s performance on 16 September followed by further shows on 18 and 19 September.
The London run follows two September concerts at Manchester’s Albert Hall and marks Smith’s first UK concerts since the Gloria arena tour in 2023.
Rather than returning with another conventional arena production, Smith has deliberately taken the new show into theatres.
That gives the To Be Free concerts a very different character from the huge stages associated with their previous tour and puts the focus firmly back on the voice, songs and audience.
A different kind of Sam Smith show
The Sam Smith London Coliseum residency follows the release of Smith’s fifth studio album, Hazel Eyes, which arrived on 21 August.
The record includes songs such as “My Guy”, “Love Is a Stillness”, “Hold On” and the title track, and material from the album has become an important part of the residency.
But this is not simply a performance of the new record.
Smith has been combining Hazel Eyes material with songs from across their career, bringing tracks including “Stay With Me”, “I’m Not the Only One”, “Too Good at Goodbyes”, “Dancing With a Stranger” and “Unholy” into the more intimate surroundings of the Coliseum.
It is quite a change from the scale of the Gloria tour.
That production was deliberately theatrical, extravagant and provocative. To Be Free instead gives Smith the opportunity to put their vocals at the centre of the room.
The London Coliseum is particularly suited to that idea. Opened in 1904 and now home to English National Opera, it provides a setting more commonly associated with opera and musical theatre than a major contemporary pop residency.
New artists get the Coliseum stage too
Smith has also used the UK dates to give emerging performers a significant opportunity.
Working with BBC Introducing, artists were selected to support the Manchester and London concerts after more than 1,500 submissions.
That means each night can introduce the audience to another developing artist before Smith takes the stage.
Tonight’s 16 September show lists Josie Oliver as the support act, while Tamzene and Tyler Lewis are among the performers appearing on the remaining London dates.
It adds another dimension to a residency that has been designed to feel smaller and more personal than a traditional pop tour.
A homecoming after taking To Be Free around the world
The UK shows are part of a residency concept Smith has already taken internationally.
To Be Free began with performances in New York before moving to San Francisco and Mexico City. The September dates finally brought the format home, first to Manchester and then London.
For Smith, it also arrives more than a decade after the release of debut album In the Lonely Hour transformed them into one of Britain’s biggest international singers.
That album produced “Stay With Me”, “Money on My Mind”, “Like I Can” and “I’m Not the Only One”, establishing the voice that remains at the centre of the new show.
Their career since then has moved through enormous ballads, dance records, a James Bond theme and increasingly adventurous pop.
Smith has also become one of mainstream British pop’s most visible non-binary stars, using they/them pronouns publicly since 2019.
The Sam Smith London Coliseum residency therefore feels less like another stop on an album tour and more like a deliberate reset of the live experience.
There are still major pop records in the set and plenty of songs audiences know word for word, but they are being performed in a theatre rather than disappearing into the scale of an arena.
With three London performances remaining, including tonight’s show, Smith’s latest UK chapter is unfolding in a room where there is considerably less distance between artist and audience.
For a singer whose career was originally built around the emotional impact of a voice and a song, it is a fitting place to come home.