You don’t need to have immersed your life in arcane West End gossip channels to have seen this one coming. Earlier this year, a lavish stage adaptation of Disney’s 2017 smash The Greatest Showman had out of town tryouts at the Bristol Hippodrome. And right now, Disney’s current new musical Hercules is reaching the end of its yearlong run at Theatre Royal Drury Lane – the gargantuan historic theatre which has basically become the Mouse’s home in London in the post-pandemic era since Frozen opened there in 2021.
In fact the biggest surprise to some may be that The Greatest Showman is new to the stage. It’s a rare example of a massively successful musical that started life on screen, where the role of the legendary American circus impresario PT Barnum was famously played by Hugh Jackman. Its Gen Z-friendly, modern-pop inflected score is certainly something of a departure from the average contemporary musical, but nothing insurmountable, and a decade after it hit screens The Greatest Showman: The Musical will open on Drury Lane’s gigantic stage.
In terms of the talent involved it’s effectively a Broadway production, led by director Casey Nicholaw who helmed the musical version of Disney’s Aladdin and whose work you can see all over the London stage, most notably in long-running classic The Book of Mormon. He’s joined by the film’s songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who have written a series of new tunes to expand the musical, which has a book (ie the talky bits) by Tim Federle.
They’re all Americans, which is fair enough as it’s an adaption of an American film set in America. But of course we have acting talent to spare and so it’s a Brit cast led by Oliver Tompsett as Barnum and Samantha Barks (who played Elsa in the West End’s Frozen) as Barnum’s wife Charity, who return from the Bristol run.
There were no reviews allowed in Bristol so we don’t necessarily know a huge amount about it, though Nicholaw is a pretty safe pair of hands who is unlikely to do anything too weird to it. That said we’re talking new songs and live circus element that should add a definite distinct layer of identity: if you’re one of the many, many fans of the film it should hit the spot, and seems like a pretty safe bet for the biggest London theatre show of 2027.
The Greatest Showman: The Musical will open at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in spring 2027. Exact dates are TBC but you can sign up to be the first to hear more information at thegreatestshowman.co.uk.
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