Prince Edward Theatre

There are only so many theatres in London big enough to stage a proper full on Broadway musical spectacular, and with MJ the Musical off, the door is open for Beetlejuice the Musical to enter. The name ought to make it pretty clear what we’re talking about here: Beetlejuice is of course Tim Burton’s cult classic 1988 film about a young couple with a very nice house who die in a car crash and are horrifed to observe – from a very surreal, bureacracy-bound afterlife – that some ghastly new people have moved into their old gaff. So they unwisely turn to the services of the eponymous ‘bio-exorcist’ to get rid of them; unfortunately Beetlejuice (real name Betelgeuse) is a total whackjob. Written by Scott Brown and Anthony King with music and lyrics by Australian singer-songwriter Eddie Perfect, Beetlejuice the Musical is a massive trippy goth spectacle that’s directed by Alex Timbers, best known to London audiences for his heroically OTT smash Moulin Rogue! The Musical – you can expect similar amounts of excess here. David Fynn – best known on stage for his lead role in School of Rock – will play the unhinged title character, with David Hunter and Chelsea Halfpenny as recently deceased naifs Adam and Barbara Maitland. Euphoria’s Hannah Nordberg will play Lydia Deetz, daughter of the obnoxious new home owners, aka the Winona Ryder goth girl character.  It’s being billed as a limited run, although as it’s ‘limited’ to 11 months in a massive theatre you probably don’t need to...

Boublil & Schönberg’s Miss Saigon in one of the jewels in super-producer Cameron Mackintosh’s crown – second only to the French duo’s Les Miserables, perhaps – and every so often he gives the ol’ chopper a polish and flies back to Saigon for a fresh West End run for the Vietnam War-set musical. Although rendered sowewhat unfashionable by the still festering controvesy over the casting of the white actor Jonathan Pryce as the original incarnation of half-Vietnamese hustler The Engineer, it remains a monumental and spectacular work of theatre. Adapted from Puccinni’s Madama Butterfly, its tale of doomed love offers big songs, big feelings, and big setpieces.  Although this is nominally a completely different production to the original Nicholas Hytner one, Mackintosh’s ‘revivals’ rarely deviate too far from the spirit of what made the show a big hit in the first place – don’t go expecting director Jean-Pierre van der Spuy to reinvent the wheel here (though we can take a lack of yellowface as a given, fortunately).