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The Hunchback of Notre Dame is coming to the West End! | the Disney musical in concert in London
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Mickey Jo
Excuse me. Oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a professional theatre critic and a theatrical content creator here on social media and today we have some very exciting breaking theatrical news to discuss because my favorite Disney film of all time, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, is coming to London. Producer Jack Maple is going to be staging the show in concert at the Prince Edward Theatre in the West End this August for two performances and I am very excited about it. I will tell you all of the details that we know so far, as well as maybe a couple of little extra details that I have been hearing rumblings about we don't yet know about casting. In fact, the production I don't believe has been cast yet. They are still accepting submissions if anyone is keen, but it wouldn't kill us to manifest some of the casting we might like to see, so we're going to be talking about that as well. Tickets have not yet gone on general sale. They are on sale to DMT members, so I will also be sharing information about about how to see it for yourselves and why this is so exciting. As always, comment down below with all of your thoughts and feelings about this theatrical news. Make sure you're subscribed following me. Do whatever you have to do to make sure you are up to date with all of the West End and Broadway news and all of my latest content. In the meantime, it's time for us to talk about Hunchback coming to the West End. Did you know about this fuzzy Modo? You didn't tell me this was happening. I joke. We talk about everything. So here are the immediate details from the press release which was sent out today. Award winning producer Jack Maple, who is also the produce behind recent successful concerts, the Spring Awakening reunion concert at the Victoria Palace Theatre last year. Prior to that, the Witches of Eastwick concert at the Sondheim Theatre which I reviewed on here, which I thought was brilliant. He is delighted to announce the musical stage adaptation of the beloved Disney classic the Hunchback of Notre Dame will have its UK professional premiere with two concert performances at the Prince Edward Theatre where MJ the Musical is currently playing. It's a Delfont Mackintosh Theatre. It's huge. It's been a home to Disney musicals in the past with Aladdin with Mary Poppins on Sunday 17th August 2025. Tickets on sale here you go from 10am on Friday 14th February. Happy Valentine's Day to you. So that's going to be tomorrow if you don't already have them through a DMT membership. So, Sunday 17th of August, two performances, Prince Edward Theatre in the West End. Obviously I'm going to be there. I'm very excited about this and hopefully lots of you will be there as well. Let me know if you're planning on getting tickets or if you're a DMT member who has already got tickets today. Now, the reason this is a UK professional premiere is because Hunchback has been by amateur and youth groups in the UK before, but it hasn't been staged professionally because the stage adaptation, which started its life in Central Europe, in Germany or Austria, I believe, as Der Gluckner von Notre Dame. In fact, I think I have some information about it here. Yes, it first opened in. Oh, there you go. In Berlin in Germany in 1999, around the same time that the Lion King was coming to many of the world's major stages with a book by James Lapine under the German name Der Gluckner von Notre Dame, where it ran for over 1200 performances and was seen by 1.4 million people. In 2015, 2014, a new version premiered in San Diego with a book by Peter Parnell and additional songs from Mencken and Schwartz. That's Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, if you didn't know. A huge part, kind of the hugest part about why Hunchback is so beloved and why people are so eager to see it on a stage in London. In fact, Sidebar this is the moment I want to take to talk about why it's so exciting that this is happening in London and why it is frankly overdue. Because Hunchback on stage has been popular and successful in European countries. There was this attempt finding big success with it in North America in the 2000 and tens. That didn't really work out the way Disney were hoping, but for whatever reason an attempt has never been made to bring it to London to bring it to the uk. I think a big part of that is the prohibitive expense of staging the Hunchback of Notre Dame because that same sweeping, huge epic score requires a lot. It requires a certain amount of scale. So does the story you're talking about. This iconic, huge building. Portraying that on stage requires a certain amount of representation. You can't do it with like a stripped back, Jamie Lloyd style production. That's not going to work for Hunchback. Can you imagine? Do you know who would have found a way to make it work. Hal Prince. Hal Prince could have made this work. But it's also been suggested that you would need to have a choir. I don't actually know if that's specifically required by the license. There's a very good possibility that it is and scale within the orchestra as well. It is vast, it is big. But I'm still convinced that it would be really, really winning in the uk, given the Les Miserables treatment, if there were to be a production at the Barbican involving the Royal Shakespeare Company, literally the same way that Les Miserables was brought to the stage and if it was epic and soaring. I think, you know, despite Disney's reservations about Hunchback being a little too dark for a family audience, that in the UK we see stuff like that all the time. My neighbour Totoro, on the face of it, very sweet, very smiley, very whimsical, but it has this not dark undercurrent, but a real sense of solemn depth to it as well. That's running alongside that. There is a lot more overt darkness in Hunchback, but I think they're underestimating quite how many people who have fallen in love with this film during childhood and now grown would still buy a ticket to go and see it. It doesn't just have to be the family audiences that Disney are used to courting with the likes of Aladdin and Frozen. And so I actually think that a British stage is where Hunchback really deserves to find its life. And it could be hugely successful and I am thrilled that we are getting it in some capacity. The other good thing about this being a concert is that I do think we are going to get some of that scale that I mentioned. I do think there is going to be a big vocal presence. I do think it's going to be a large, lush orchestra. That is what I am hearing at least. And yes, I had been hearing rumors about this being in development for a couple of months now. I have been very excited. I may even have dropped a hint in a previous video. I probably couldn't help myself. What else does this tell us? What else have we not spoken about yet? Oh, the direction. So this is going to be directed by Jonathan O'Boyle. And that's another big part about why I am so excited for it. Because he did such a fantastic job with Pippin in concert last year at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Again, I reviewed that here on YouTube. You can go and check it out. That was maybe my favorite concert production from the last year. And so the combination of him as A brilliant creative force with Jack Maple, who puts together a really polished and professional concert experience, which is not necessarily guaranteed. They have slowed down the number of concerts, but I made a video not too long ago where I said, are we seeing too many concert productions in the uk? Was there a quantity over quality issue? And it really seemed to depend on who was putting them together, on how they were being produced, because they weren't all being done so conscientiously, it seemed. However, Spring Awakening Witches of Eastwick have been acclaimed, have had this fantastic audience response to them. They've had good sound, they've been well staged, they have been brilliantly cast. I am hugely excited about Hunchback in the Hands of Jack and Jonathan. I think that's going to be brilliant. Now, if somehow you don't know the Hunchback of Notre Dame, it is my favourite Disney film. I think it's far and away the strongest Disney score and let's be honest with ourselves, it's the most inherently theatrical, I think, of any of the Disney cinematic scores. I said recently that the scores of Disney's films have always followed the world of musical theatre. And Hunchback, I think, exists in this post mega musical Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera world. All of the above, of course, set in Paris, but it's romantic and dark and sweeping and grand. It's full of melodic fanfare and this passion and these aspirational high notes set to very challenging vowels. It's an absolutely stunning score. It is also a very challenging sing. I am hugely intrigued about the voices that we may get to hear singing this score later this year. And though they have not yet been cast, I feel like we could do a little bit of manifestation and fan casting right now. And essentially I think it's pretty likely we could see a lot of Les Mis alumni in this show. Tonally lives in a very similar place. And there are many talented Les Mis alumni in London. With the show having been running for as many years as it has with the recent touring production and the current world tour going on, could our Quasimodo be someone like Jack Yarrow, currently touring with Les Mis? Could it be any of the last, like seven Mariuses? Could it be someone like a Sam Tutty? Could it be a brilliant unknown? Could Jack Wolfe sing Cosimoto? Is that something that's just now occurring to me and would actually be compellingly exciting? Are they going to incorporate, Given that this is a concert production and it's likely to be semi staged but not fully staged, are they going to incorporate some Nod to Quasimodo as a deaf character. This is something that has been included in a handful of recent productions, something that has been nodded to more. Be great to see some disability representation acknowledged within that particular casting moment. I feel like we have dozens of options for Phoebuses. You could go like a kind of a Rob Houchen route. You could go a Bradley Jaden route. There's so many different people who you could bring in. There's loads of people who could give you a great Phoebus. Esmeralda. I feel like the most expected thing might be someone like a Christina Lardo who would sound stunning. Don't get me wrong, I would have said Emma Kingston, but she's going to be busy being Green because she is about to take over as Elphaba. Maybe an Alexia Kadeem, maybe a Lucy St. Louis. Danielle Fiaman, I think, will be busy in Brigadoon at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Otherwise that absolutely would have been another suggestion. Then who else do we have? We have Frollo and we have Clopin. Matt Bateman as Clopin would be sensational. That would sound incredible. I just need someone with audacious vocals. If you don't know Matt Bateman, go and look up his social media. He's currently in the cast of Les Miserables, but he has gone semi viral on Socials before, singing these epic high tenor renditions of various things, including Hunchback of Notre Dame. Patrick Page has, of course, played Judge Claude Frollo before. He is currently in town with the original stars of Hadestown. He's just sustained an injury preventing him from immediately making his West End debut with them. But if he wants to come back later in the summer and do Frollo again, or if indeed Philip Boykin, who is currently standing in for him in Hadestown, wants to come over and do it, that would sound amazing, that real depth and that booming bass resonance that both of them have. Or another of our own stars, Jeremy Secombe. I feel like I pitched Jeremy Secombe for so many different things, but he can really give you that terrifying edge to it as well, in that sense of menace. He's played Sweeney Todd, he has played Marley's ghost in A Christmas Carol. He can be very scary when he needs to be and very powerful as a musical theater actor. Oh, I have another Esmeralda I'd forgotten about. Danielle Steers would be sensational for this and she was meant to be in the Witches of Eastwick concert a couple of years ago. I think she had to pull out at the last minute because of COVID I think we were still in the the sort of recurring Covid times. More so at that point. I am personally available, Mr. Maple, if you need someone to play Jarli the goat or the. What's the horse called? Achilles. Achilles the horse. Is Quasimodo on this jumper somewhere? Is Phoebus on this jumper? Who's on this jumper? Anyway, that for now is in fact all that we know. A reminder, if you want to get tickets, they are from 30 pounds. They are going on sale at 10am UK time on Friday 14th February. That is tomorrow. As I sit here and tell you this, it's going to be two shows on Sunday 17th August at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. I think whoever they bring in is going to sound terrific. I'm really excited to see the extent to which Jonathan O'Boyle creates a staged production. I think that might surprise us a little. And before we even get to casting, just hearing the start of that music played by the orchestra that I am hearing that there may be is a very, very exciting prospect. I have it on good authority that this is going to sound pretty sensational. All of this because it is being put together by someone who has the same level of care for the material as the fans do, which is always a good sign. I am so excited by this news. I hope that you are as well. Let me know your own fan casting manifestation thoughts in the comment section down below. Let me know if you're planning to go and see it. And let me know if you are one of the lucky individual who has seen the Hunchback of Notre Dame on stage before anywhere around the world and tell us more about it. Thank you for watching this theatrical news recap. Make sure to subscribe. Follow Me Turn on those notifications so you don't miss any of my upcoming videos about Broadway, the West End and more. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey Day. Subscribe.