Back to the Future: The Musical

The Back to the Future musical made its global debut in Manchester on the 20th of February earlier this year. It’s run was scheduled to last for the majority of 2020, but unfortunately (like a lot of other things) the theatres closed when lockdown hit and the musical that was sure to take the 2020 spotlight was forced to exit swiftly stage left.

However, it has been recently announced that the musical will return in 2021, but will not be returning to Manchester but will instead take the stage at the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End. And whilst this may not be accessible for those like me, who live in the North West, I urge anyone who is a fan of the 1985 movie or just a fan of fun musicals to book tickets to what I can only describe as the most ambitious and entertaining stage show I have ever seen.

The cast, fronted by Olly Dobson who plays Marty McFly and Roger Bart who plays Doc Brown, will all return for the London performances. The cast were unbelievably accurate to the original Robert Zemeckis movie. From the upper tier you could easily mistake Dobson for Michael J Fox and Hugh Coles for Crispin Glover (George McFly). They had the mannerisms and characteristics down to an absolute tee, which as a great Back to the Future fan was very exciting.

I was worried the narrative would get lost in the adaptation to stage from screen, but the writers and director kept pretty true to the film - particularly the narrative moments that make the film so popular. I don’t want to give anything away at all, but the fact that they were able to authentically recapture these classic cinematic moments in a theatre was ingenious and extremely ambitious.

But you’d be mistaken to think that the stage show is a carbon copy of the film that inspired it. The narrative morphs slightly to suit its medium, and a fantastic original musical soundtrack is added to add to the atmosphere of the show. The songs are all relevant to the narrative, and none feel out of place or forced, and the show even includes some of the classic songs made famous by the film!

The climax to show is astounding, and that’s what sets it apart from any other musical you can see in the West End. Ambitious, daring, gripping and exciting - for them to achieve such a cinematic ending that you would expect in a top Hollywood movie, in the setting of a stage performance is a master stroke, and seeing this master stroke in the flesh is well worth the price of admission and a trip to the West End!