The Arts at Marble Arch

Heathers – The Musical will return to London to open the new Arts at Marble Arch theatre. This review is from its limited original 2018 run. I think I’d have warmer feelings towards ‘Heather The Musical’ if I’d not previously seen the 1988 film ‘Heathers’. One of the all-time great high school flicks, its scabrous wit and weapons-grade cynicism are in no way recreated by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy’s glossy reimagining. Their adaptation clutches the basic plot points of the cult film about the demise of the eponymous clique of identically-named schoolgirls, but there’s rarely any sense they understood its appeal. I’ll say three things in the defence of this production, transferring from a sold-out preview stint at The Other Palace, and helmed by the show’s original off-Broadway director Andy Fickmann. One, a musical in which the main antagonist is essentially a high school shooter – Jamie Muscato’s JD, channelling Christian Slater, but without the menace – is a big ask in 2018. It’s not really a shocker that they’ve toned his character down, or tried to take the edge off the teen suicide stuff. Two, the tunes are big, bright things, sweet and crunchy and hooky. That they’re often completely unsuitable for the story – the second act becomes unforgivable bogged in sentiment and exposition – won’t necessarily matter to those approaching ‘Heathers’ as fans of the music rather than the film. And three, singer and YouTube star Carrie Hope Fletcher really is terrific in...

This review is for Burlesque’s 2025 West End run. It returns for a lengthier 2026 run at the pop up The Arts at Marble Arch theatre, but it seems likely this will be a fairly different production from the one reviewed below as it doesn’t appear to involve Todrick Hall directly. Cassidy Janson as Tess is the only confirmed casting and it’s not clear at this stage who is on the creative team.   The omens were not good for this stage musical adaptation of the 2010 Christina Aguilera screen vehicle Burlesque. Foremost among them: it debuted in Manchester and Glasgow last year, but most of its creative team was summarily axed and replaced by one Todrick Hall, an erstwhile American Idol contestant who the bumpf describes as ‘one of the most high-profile and prolific storytellers in the world’. I am slightly exaggerating here. The hugely talented British set designer Soutra Gilmour, for instance, was replaced by Nate Bertone, another American. And Hall was already involved. But he now directs, choreographs and has written most of the songs, plus he stars in not one but two roles. Oh, and while the book is officially written by Steven Antin – who wrote and directed the film – it’s hard not to see the hand of Tod in the larky, metatheatrical script, which is not only very different in tone to the film, but also gives all the larkiest, most metatheatrical lines to Hall’s brace of characters. Anyway, Burlesque isn’t totally inept, but it’s ultimately just bludgeoning, a clangorous...