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Was EVITA this summer's only hit? | A comparison of the West End's last two summer theatre seasons
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Mickey Jo
Prices and participation may vary. At the risk of sounding just a little bit negative, did this summer of theatre in London kind of suck? Obviously, I'm being overdramatic, but from 2024 to 2025 we saw a lot of differences in the shows being produced in and around the West End, with plenty of trends that we're going to talk about right now. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you're listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo. If you don't know me, I'm a professional theatre here on social media. I'm obsessed with all things theatre. If you do know me, chances are you've heard all of this before as I arrive to your eyes, your ears, your minds. Today it is the end of the summer. It is the beginning of September, which is exciting for me because it is my birthday month. I'm getting ready to turn 30. I'm dealing with it quite well, I think. Although I say that to you while still technically being 29, by the time you're watching this, there's a very good chance I'm already 30, which is a scary thing to say. But for many people, September is a sad month because it signals the end of the summer. People are going back to school, people are going back to work, people are returning from their holidays. And the London summer theatre season is definitely over. Not just because it was raining dramatically today and the weather was miserable, but also because many of the limited summer runs have already finished or are about to conclude. And one of the most auspicious was Jamie Lloyd's revival of Evita at the London Palladium, starring Rachel Zegler. Exploding off of the Palladium stage with the immense energy of Fabian Aloise's choreography and also singing from the balcony onto Argyll street, this production was all anybody was talking about all summer long. But did that cast too great a shadow and make it impossible for other shows to live up? Or was there simply nothing else anywhere near as exciting being programmed and produced? And what really brought this to my attention was the fact that Evita in particular was bringing so many of my friends from other countries to the UK to see the show, many of whom couldn't necessarily fill extensive schedules with a lot of other stuff that they were particularly interested in seeing. And when you've got theatre people making their first trip to the UK in years and only having the chance to see four shows, and one of them being the balcony at Evita, then I think we might have a little bit of a problem. So to answer the question of whether or not this summer in London was a little bit theatrically disappointing, I am going to be drawing a direct comparison between this summer's shows and last summer's shows under the headings of several different categories. We are going to talk about new British musicals, which of course we know are very important and neglected. We are going to talk about musical revivals. We are going to talk about Broadway Trans first. We're going to talk about new revivals. We're going to talk about returning remounted productions, and we are going to see which of those we had more of this year, which seem to be dwindling and which are more or less staying the same. I am excited to have this conversation. I'm excited to hear what you think about it. Let me know your thoughts about this summer of theatre in London compared with last summer. For the sake of positivity, comment down below with the best thing you saw in London this summer. And if you want to hear more of my thoughts about the theatre industry in the West End and worldwide, make sure to subscribe right here to my theatre themed YouTube channel or go follow me on podcast platform. Now let's talk about a disappointing summer of theatre, shall we? I can feel the energy from the comments section getting mad at me for saying that this summer was boring. Hear me out. Until I have the chance to prove it, and in my eagerness to do so, we're going to start with the category that I felt like was the most conspicuous between the two years. We're going to talk about that needlessly rare thing, the new British musical. And this is a big part of why it felt like last summer was one of the greatest in my lifetime for theatre. There were so many exciting, brilliant new musicals being produced in London last summer. You had not only Two Strangers Carry A Cake Across New York, transferring from the Kiln Theatre to the Criterion. It's now heading to Broadway later this year. Go and check it out in New York. I promise you, it's lovely New York audiences. You are going to fall in love with this show and Sam Tutty's performance. But we also had Kathy and Stella solve a murder coming down from the Edinburgh Fringe to Ambassadors Theatre. You also had Jack Godfrey's Babies at the Other Palace. You can find my reviews by the way of all of these wherever you are seeing or hearing this right now. And I know I said new British musicals, but we also had an Australian musical being produced in the West End for the first time in memory with Fangirls by Eve Blake at the Lyric Hammersmith. All of these terrific shows, a real embarrassment of new musical theatre riches. And admittedly, not everything was a hit. I never got the chance to see A Face in the Crowd at the Young Vic, but it had a less than lukewarm response. You're lying. April is a show that I really quite enjoyed at the Harold Pinter Theatre and I think it got far less than it deserved. But that closed, you know, disappointingly early in its run, as did the Marie Antoinette playlist musical Cake. A lot of the material of which I do still enjoy. And I think that there is a show there in the midst of a little bit of an identity crisis, but at the very least, there was abundant creativity when it came to bringing new musicals to the stage. That was last year. Now, let's look at 2025, the summer that we've just had, and the new that arrived on stage. Now, I have seen most of these, but I'm going to begin with one that I haven't, which is Saving Mozart at the Other Palace. And I entreat you to comment down below if you had the chance to see Saving Mozart. I was away for its press night and most of its run, honestly, so I didn't have the chance to see it. It had a fantastic cast. I've heard that some of the music is really exciting and we can all go and listen to that now if we want to, but it's another one that didn't get a particularly enthusiastic critical reception. And this summer was sort of characterized by well liked shows, but nothing really overwhelmingly exciting or shows that divided audiences and critics. I'm thinking about the musical, which got a whole host of different critical responses but admittedly sold very well. You can go and listen to my review video of Burlesque or my video breaking down the various different reviews that it got, from two star reviews to five star reviews. There was also Hercules at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Usually it would be really exciting to get a new Disney show, but it's generally been suggested and I haven't yet seen this one either, though I have seen prior productions in New Jersey and in Hamburg that this one didn't live up to the Disney magic of its predecessors. And many of the reviews reflected that as well. Probably my favorite new musical that we had this summer was Sing Street. There's a lot that I really fell in love with about that, particularly its performances, particularly its score. But there's still a lot about that show that I think needs a little bit of work and retooling. So it wasn't a complete slam dunk for me. And the only other new musicals that I could think of when I was put this list together were very charming, plucky new productions like Pop Off, Michelangelo Coming down from the Edinburgh Fringe to Underbelly Boulevard and Lovestuck at Theatre Royal Stratford east. Both of which I thought were delightful new shows but not necessarily big new musical theatre heavyweights. So you can see pretty quickly why, upon reflection, this summer felt like something of a disappointment compared to last year. And it's a shame when we've been saying that Olivier Award wins for shows like Operation Mincemeat and the Curious Case of Benjamin Button make a compelling case for four new British musicals. For new British musicals produced in fringe venues. For things like Beam, the Musical Theatre Pitching Conference, which Operation Mincemeat came from, which two strangers also came from. It's sad then to see new musical theatre having something of a slump. And even if the shows that I mentioned this summer, they weren't all British written. Burlesque isn't, Hercules isn't. But it isn't all about new musicals. I sit here wearing an Evita T shirt and an Evita baseball cap. And that was one of this summer's exciting musical revivals. But did 2024 still have the ED in that category?
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Mickey Jo
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Mickey Jo
So while Evita may have been hugely exciting this summer, last summer had so many different revivals and a real range of different musical theatre revivals for all tastes. Because you had classic shows like Kiss Me Kate at the Barbican starring Stephanie J. Block and Adrian Dunbar and hello Dolly at the London Palladium. Before Rachel Zegler was singing Don't Cry for Me Argentina on the balconies, Imelda Staunton was walking down that Travelator and singing before the Parade Passes By. But that is not all. That is in fact just a drop in the ocean. When we think about how many musical revivals there were playing in London last summer. Because you also had the acclaimed, multi Olivier Award winning revival of Fiddler on the Roof at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, one of my favorite theatrical venues in the entire world. And that show became their longest running and highest grossing show I think ever in the history of the venue, which is huge. The following spring it would go on to dominate the Olivier Award nominations, I think, tying with the record set by Hamilton for nominations and becoming the most Olivier Award nominated musical revival of all time. And then in a completely different direction away from the classic stuff. We also had an exciting, dynamic new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express at the Troubadour Theatre in Wembley park. That continues to run through this summer that has just had a cast change, but that was opening last year in the midst of all of these other musical revivals. I mean it was such a strong year for it. And that's without even mentioning the transfer of the Leicester Curve non replica production of A Chorus Line to Sadler's Wells, the Young Vic production of Passing Strange Starring Giles Torero, which I thought deserved more acclaim than it got. And the many a Chocolate Factory revival of the Baker's Wife, starring Lucy Jones and Clive Rowe. That same production is about to be mounted by the Classic Stage Company under the same director, Gordon Greenberg, with Ariana DeBose starring. But it was here in London first last summer. I don't think the material is perfect, but it was a beautifully atmospheric production, gorgeously performed, wonderfully staged, and it reminded me what I love about France, what I love about Meadowlark, and what I love about Bread. Give me all three and I'm very happy. And, you know, that's one of the fascinating things about London, because the Tony Awards mean that fairly few new Broadway shows, almost none really open in the summer months. Over in New York, a handful of things, things close in the weeks following the Tonys if they didn't win enough, but not a lot of new stuff opens because it would have to maintain buzz and excitement for such a long time to get Tony Awards recognition almost a year later. But over here, that was seven musical revivals alone opening in the summer months. Because the Olivier Awards don't mean nearly as much, and because the majority of those were limited runs that were over by the time the Oliviers happened anyway, so it didn't really matter. Cut once more to 2025, when, yes, we had Evita. Huge musical revival and a Jamie Lloyd revival, which is a revival with a capital R, because we're not just bringing back the show, but we are reconceiving it, we're recontextualizing it, we are invigorating it with an exciting new life. We're giving it a transfusion of contemporary theatrical techniques. We're doing crazy stuff with cameras, and the choreography is going to be off the charts and we're going to have celebrities in it and exciting rising stars alongside, and it's going to get talked about all across Social. And once again, just like with his production of Sunset Boulevard, all of those things happened. And I dare say Evita will be well remembered when it comes to the Olivier Awards next year. But putting Evita to one side for the moment, in comparison with the seven varied musical theatre revivals we had last year, including a handful that were really astonishing. Which were the other revivals that we got this summer? Well, we had the Frogs at Southwark Playhouse, and it's always a treat to see a less produced Sondheim. And the way that that was cast, I thought was very fun. You can listen to my full thoughts about that product. Was Also Brigadoon this summer at Regent's Park Open Air Theater, which was gorgeous in that setting, but certainly wasn't as acclaimed as Fiddler on the Roof. And that was essentially it. Like Evita is trying to fly the musical revival flag for 2025, that flag of course, being an Argentinian one, but, you know, it's just not backed up by enough other strong contenders, not compared with how many we got last year. And if you look at those venues that gave us great musical productions last year, the Menier Chocolate Factory did not produce a musical. This summer they produced Anoushka Lucas's music called Play Elephant, which I've seen before at the Bush and is terrific. Sadler's World had a play instead of a musical for the summer. The Barbican divided their summertime between a play from Broadway, Goodnight Oscar, which we'll talk about, and a return of that production of Fiddler on the Roof, which is very exciting to see, but, you know, it doesn't really count because it primarily happened last summer. It is about to go on tour though. Check it out at a theater near you. And the Young Vic Truly said, go girl, give us nothing, because they were dark for the summer, because not enough had been programmed and scheduled by the outgoing artistic director before the incoming artistic director could take over, and they just couldn't put something on its feet fast enough. So instead they used the space to workshop a new musical instead. And hopefully that's an exciting thing that we get to see one day. But for now it just feels like we're comparatively starved of musicals. But perhaps the plays are doing better now. Admittedly, you seem to get fewer productions of plays opening in the summer months, and I think that tends to be because the summer scheduled shows are primarily for the tourists who are maybe a little bit more interested in the musicals than the plays, unless they're really commercially driven or star led, etc. I also wonder if it's a little bit harder to book some of those stars in the summer when they'd rather be holidaying with their families than hanging out in a theatre with famously little air conditioning. But glancing back at last summer, some of the play highlights that I picked out were shifters at the Duke of York's Theatre, the Constituent at the Old Vic, which didn't really set the West End on fire, but I thought it was a decent enough play. The years at the Almeida, which did set the End on fire and subsequently transferred, as well as play revivals of A View from the Bridge and Jamie Lloyd's Romeo and Juliet starring Tom Holland, which was very talked about and drew large crowds to the sort of almost but not quite stage door on St. Martin's Lane, but neither of which were particularly acclaimed. So was summer 2025 better for plays? Well, maybe just about. We had new productions of Foreplay at the King's Head Theatre with a terrific four person cast as well as a sort of forensic new production of Mrs. Warren's profession, the biggest selling point of which was real life mother and daughter Imelda Staunton and Bessie Carter joining each other on stage playing a mother and daughter. But the brand new plays definitely generated a little bit more buzz. The Fifth Step with Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman at at Soho Place was decently talked about, even if it was surprisingly short. And I'm not talking about how long it ran for, I'm actually talking about the play itself. Very short play. There was also a new offering from Mischief Theatre Company, the brilliant comedic minds behind the Play that Goes Wrong and all of those other shows. This time it was the comed about Spies at the Noel Coward Theater. How we have waited for a new Mischief Theater show that is something that audiences are always going to enjoy. But the biggest hit of the summer when it came to plays was Inter Alia at the National Theatre starring Rosamund Pike. From the team who brought you Prima Facie, I anticipate that this sold out success is going to aim to transfer to the West End, perhaps subsequently to Broadway, pending the availability of Rosamund Pike. If she wants to keep doing it, then I think producers are going to want to keep doing it as well. And so they should, should. And so maybe, just maybe thanks to a couple of those, but particularly Inter Alia, which was maybe the second or third hottest ticket of the entire summer, maybe 2025 had the edge when it came to plays. I've also got a little bit of a miscellaneous category here with shows I didn't know what to do with because last summer you had Spirited Away at the Coliseum. And the really exciting thing about last summer at the time for me was the sheer variety of of shows is that you had this beloved Studio Ghibli animated classic being brought to the stage and this huge, gorgeous production and all of these talented performers. I thought that alongside the plays, alongside all of the new musicals, the musical revivals, it just seemed like there was so, so much happening in London. And this summer, admittedly we had a couple of other interesting productions that did give audiences variety. I'm thinking about Oscar at the Crown, the post apocalyptic, queer, immersive nightclub musical that popped up on Tottenham Court Road and sadly I think there are a lot of audience still have yet to discover the brilliance and the energy of that show, but it did a lot to quicken the pulse of the summer. There was also the immersive grease, courtesy of Secret Cinema. Truly, and I mean this with all sincerity, one of the highlights of the summer for me, which is as much a praise for that production as it is an indictment of the rest of the summer season.
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Mickey Jo
And we also admittedly had a lot of transfers and returns, but so did 2024. Let's decide which ones were of a higher quality because in 2024 we had a transfer of the wizard of Oz to the Gillian Lynn Theatre after Standing at the Sky's Edge. I guess Standing at the Sky's Edge could also be considered a transfer. It was from the National Theatre, also a new British musical. Last year more theatre that popped up in the West End was Death of England at at Soho Place. Three separate solo or two person plays running in rep, contributing to one larger overall story that audiences could eventually see back to back in one day. That was an exciting piece of programming. Over at the event in Apollo in Hammersmith you had Shrek, a slightly less exciting piece of programming, but family audiences need theatre in the summer as well, and I have nothing against Shrek as a musical, just that one. And at the very top of the list you had two brilliant productions with a lot in common. The return of People, Places and Things to the Trafalgar Theatre and transfer of Next to Normal from the Donmar, two huge components of why last summer was so very exciting. Now let's take a look at 2025. So yes, we had the aforementioned return of Fiddler on the Roof to the Barbican, that gorgeous production. But there was also every brilliant thing which I'm sort of calling a return. But it was also a new production arriving late in the summer at at Soho Place and continuing for the next few months with a rotating cast of solo performers. Go and check out my review of that if you haven't already ready. Also, more successes for the National Theatre with Tilda Stars Come down heading to Theatre Royal Haymarket, offering audience members the chance to watch it from on stage as well as throughout that auditorium. Loved that play, thought it was brilliant. The national themselves, as part of the celebration of the end of Rufus Norris tenure as artistic director, remounted his award winning and acclaimed production of London Road in the Olivier Auditorium. We also had the West End revival of Just for One Day, originally produced at the Old Vic Theatre and a show which I actually thought was significantly stronger the second time around. Then you have the Eventum Apollo. Last year they had Shrek, this year they had 101 Dalmatians. Real rocking, a hard place stuff there. And Sadler's Wells, who last year hosted A Chorus Line, this time brought back the lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as part of its national tour. So a lot of fantastic productions, but maybe still not quite of the caliber that last summer offered us with the likes of Next to Normal and People Places and things. Really heart shattering stuff. This year I feel like I was thoroughly entertained by a lot of those pieces of theatre, but I didn't feel like I needed therapy afterwards. And that's the level that I want us to aspire to here. But all of this pessimism from me to build towards the fact that there is one thing that increased significantly this summer and seems to be set to increase over the next year or so and that is transfers from Broadway. Now, if you've listened to my Broadway reviews, you may have heard me saying that Broadway for its last couple of seasons had, you know, really full, fantastic offerings of brilliant shows. And it feels, feels like finally the floodgates have opened and they are going to begin to make their way to the West End with a little more frequency, which is very welcome news. A big part of that is the reality that Broadway has become more and more expensive and less and less likely for shows to be able to recoup their investments that is only getting worse progressively. I will at some point offer a fuller conversation about the way in which the Broadway ecosystem is financially failing at the moment and perhaps due for something of a reckoning in the next few years years. But for now what that looks like is more and more American producers working in the uk, more and more American investors putting money in shows in the uk. And that's why we are set to get some very exciting things certainly in comparison to last summer, because the only Broadway transfers last summer that I can recall were Mean Girls finally opening at the Savoy years after it first appeared on Broadway and Slave Play, the multi Tony Award nominated play opening at the Noel Cap Howard. This year by comparison we had not only a transfer of the Sean Hayes led play Goodnight Oscar to the Barbican Theatre, but also the Great Gatsby bringing their huge and exciting production to the London Coliseum and compiling a West End cast familiar of the Avengers. Back at the National Theatre we also had the UK and European premiere of the Stephen Sondheim and David Ives musical Here We Are, which I enjoyed considerably more when I saw it the second time after figuring out what it was that I was looking at at. As well as the record breaking Tony nominated play Stereophonic continuing to run at the Duke of York's Theatre, a play that I just love and one of my most beloved Broadway musicals shucked at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. So Broadway transfers are something that seem to be really increasing and like I said, there are more on the way, which I am very excited to tell you about as soon as they get announced. But chances are, if there is a play or a musical even from the last couple of years that you have been hoping will eventually arrive in the West West End, then your wishes may be granted very, very soon. And maybe, just maybe, it means that summer 2026 will look more exciting than summer 2025 when it comes to London theatre. Hell, maybe we can dream it'll be even more exciting than summer 2024. And for what it's worth though, this may not have been the most varied and extensive and exciting summer of London theatre that I can remember. The few months which are approaching right now as we head towards the end of the year are incredibly exciting. Exciting because here in the UK we can look forward to a new revival of into the woods at the Bridge Theatre as well as the hugely anticipated new musical Paddington at the Savoy, which I think is going to be massive and entirely beyond the scope of our expectations. A stage adaptation of the Hunger Games coming to a new purpose built theatre in Canary Wharf. I don't think any of us are yet able to conceive just how wild that's going to be and plenty of other productions alongside. There is definitely exciting stuff on the horizon and I can't wait to tell you all about it. If you don't want to miss my reviews of upcoming shows, make sure to subscribe right here on YouTube or go follow me on podcast platforms. But that, for now, is everything that I have to say about the Summer of London Theatre, which has just happened and has sadly come to an end. And like I said before, to keep that sunny summer positivity going, let us all know the best show that you saw this summer in London in the comments section down below. As always, thank you for listening to my thoughts. 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.
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Tim
AI I'm Tim, a husband, father and son living with kidney disease. Even though my family has my back, I knew we could all use extra support. My kidney coach from Fresenius Kidney Care gave me tips to help me care for my kidney health and feel my best, which means more time for my family.
- [26:52]
Mickey Jo
To connect with a kidney coach from Fresenius Kidney Care and learn how to thrive with kidney disease, visit kidneycoachconnect.com that's kidneycoachconnect.com.
- [27:03]
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