Now arguably the biggest showdown in pop history has opened a new front – on the stage, with ‘The Battle’ transporting modern-day audiences back into the midst of what has been described as ‘the sweaty mid-90s carnage of the Battle of Britpop’.

Blur verses Oasis, art school intellectuals verses plain-speaking working-class lads, South verses North. The battle lines that were drawn then are revisited here in writer John Niven’s swaggering and audaciously funny story.

But while the production is infused with the sounds of the Britpop era, anyone expecting a 90s jukebox musical or a live gig may be in for the first of several surprises.

“We’re much more interested in the drama of their lives than in the drama of the music,” explains ‘The Battle’ director Matthew Dunster. “Really, it’s a play about friendship and ambition, and how the latter might break the former.

“When John thought about the events, in his mind he thought it could be like a sweaty David Mamet play where people were in rooms, and the emotional temperature is ramped up a little bit more with each scene.”

Thus, this battle unfolds not on amp-stacked stages in front of thousands of music fans, but on the fringes of award ceremonies, in recording studios, pubs and dressing rooms, beyond VIP ropes and at home behind closed doors.

Dunster was approached to join The Battle’s creative team early on and has worked closely with first time playwright Niven to recreate the intense, simmering sense of rivalry and rising tension underpinning the real-life 90s clash which spilled over from the charts and tribal fan factions and into the wider public consciousness.

It’s an era both know well – Niven as a former A&R  (Artists and Repertoire) man in the record industry and Dunster as a music fan who was there in the middle of it.

“As soon as I heard ‘Battle of the Bands’ it transported me straight back,” says the director, who reveals he saw Oasis play their fourth ever gig when they supported his friend’s group at The Hurricane Club in Oldham.

As for the ‘battle’ itself, he says he bought both singles and “was more excited about the event and the competition than taking sides.”

“I think I was probably emotionally team Oasis,” he admits, “but artistically I thought at that point that Blur were streets ahead. Then in the next 12 months, Oasis released ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’ and from that point on…it was all Oasis.”

Meanwhile actor Mathew Horne was a music-mad 16-year-old, although he too maintains he didn’t mind who won the chart-busting head-to-head.

“It probably sounds like an actor being diplomatic, but from my experience, everybody I know was both Blur and Oasis,” says Nottinghamshire-raised Horne, who plays the late Blur manager Andy Ross, the man who signed off the decision to release Country House on the same day as Oasis’s Roll With It.

“My record collection is of equal size, and the number of times I’ve seen Blur and Oasis are the same too. And I think the outcome of the battle for number one didn’t really matter. What mattered was our movement, the thing we were part of, was suddenly seen by everybody.”

It means that alongside decades of storytelling experience, both director and actor bring with them first-hand knowledge of the cultural phenomenon that was Britpop.

Horne has also, rather like his character, found himself in the position of a kind of paternal figure to the young cast, some of whom weren’t even born when the real-life showdown took place and have scant knowledge of the time – a fact which, it turns out, has also informed the creative approach when revisiting the events of 30 years ago.

Dunster recalls: “When I was auditioning people I’d ask: ‘did you know about this?’, and they didn’t. They said: ‘I know about Blur and Oasis because my dad’s into them, but I didn’t know about this battle’. So, the audience (too) could be very split in terms of who knows the outcome and who doesn’t.”

But whether or not theatregoers already know what ultimately happens, he says “I think you’ve just got to play the stakes of the characters on stage. And they get increasingly wound up and neurotic and frazzled by the competition they’ve found themselves locked in. It’s the biggest thing any of them had ever been part of.”

Saying that, he adds: “Having been to see Oasis last year in Heaton Park, it was incredible how there was a real mix of people, from 16 to 65, and everybody seemed to be as into it, and everybody seemed to know every word to every song.

“It would be great if we had a similarly broad range of ages (in the theatre). That would mean people will get different things from it. I’m not afraid of the nostalgic side of it: that’s really good fun, exploring a moment in time.”

Meanwhile Horne, who also saw the Mancunians on their triumphant 2025 reunion tour, points to the current “huge zeitgeist of 90s nostalgia”. And it’s true that right now the music, fashion and culture of the final decade of the 20^th Century is certainly enjoying a resurgence.

Between those who lived through the era, the music of the time being sought on streaming platforms and shared on social media, and with rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar keeping the grand tradition of the music feud alive, ‘The Battle’ should hopefully resonate with everyone who sees it.

“At the end of the day if you have even a passing interest in music, which most people do, there’s something in there for you,” Horne says. “I’m really excited to see what people think.

“I hope we deliver for audiences on a nostalgic level. And I also hope that we deliver for them in terms of making a really funny piece of theatre – one with a huge, hilarious twist.”

The Battle is at the Opera House, Manchester from 17 to 21 March 2026.

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Cady Heron (Emily Lane) is the daughter of a zoologist and has lived an unsheltered life on a research station in Kenya. Cady’s nurturing years were spent observing that survival cannot afford sentimentality. Since she was in baby Birkenstocks, she had an unflinching eye on the ferocity of the food chain. That childhood prepared her perfectly for the concrete savannah of North Shore High School. Drop her into a matchbox town in Illinois and give her two hours (including interval) and she will identify the apex predator, track her movements and eventually, take her down.

That big cat is Regina George, played by Vivian Panka with the untouchable sheen of Beyonce and the growl of a panther in her fabulous voice. Regina is an icon. We build icons and then we circle them. Recently, when I did some outreach at a high school we talked about gossip – everyone in every year knew everything about the popular kids. The surveillance was constant.

The hierarchy of life is all made clear to us by the ultimate soothsayers of all musical theatre, and all of life – the gays. Janis (Georgie Buckland) and Damian (Max Gill) sit on the outskirts knowing they are the absolute coolest. They tell us with crystal clear cutting comments written sharply in lyrics by Nell Benjamin, the taxonomy of mathletes, jocks and plastics. I felt like they were my friends. Isn’t it funny that we all feel we are in the outsider tribe? Just me? Doubtful.

The musical got COVID in 2020 on Broadway which possibly slowed momentum but since touring and being made into a film of the musical it has equalled the original version. You can see in the musical that the film scenes have had time to bed in. And the songs distil the themes of social Darwinism, inequality and icons.

The production design really lifts the themes of the story; the initial image of the Serengeti is hilariously grandiose and has a wry reference to The Lion King. It’s a deceptively a simple set when it comes to Northshore High – tables and chairs on casters reconfigure and make scene changes seamless. I love the ‘Meet the Plastics’ choreography by Casey Nicholaw, creating a revolve of all the types of kids in the cafeteria.

It’s all so funny. So mean. So joyous. I don’t like us laughing at Regina getting her comeuppance by being in a wheelchair though. It feels dated. A story so invested in outsiders and what they teach could take that small step further. Throughout the show there is mindful representation, yet disability sits outside the frame. When you are already dissecting who gets power, who is exiled, it matters.

Cady, surviving with superficial scars finds along the way, as Javere in Les Mis did – if you look to the stars, we are mere flickers. Even those of us who think we are kind of a massive deal. Loyalties are tested, weaknesses surface, evolution happens. Encore.

Mean Girls is at The Opera House, Manchester from 23 February to 7 March 2026.

Banner image: MEAN GIRLS THE MUSICAL. Kiara Dario (Gretchen Wieners), Vivian Panka (Regina George) and Sophie Pourret (Karen Smith). Photo by Paul Coltas

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In the sparkle of the stage, Mitzi del Bra is a drag queen down on the town – and down on her luck. With both the crowds and the years starting to pass her by, she finds herself at a loss after a call from her ex-wife, who demands she come to the remote town of Alice Springs to meet their nine-year-old son. Now out of costume as Anthony ‘Tick’ Belrose, Tick takes his old friend Bernadette Bassenger – a transgender woman grieving her lover – and rival queen Felicia Jollygoodfellow to perform at his ex-wife’s casino, though doesn’t tell them the real reason for their visit.  

Thundering through rural Australia on a school bus christened ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’, the trio soon find themselves face-to-face with a host of bizarre characters, with some far crueller than others. But after Priscilla breaks down in the middle of the Simpson Desert, the three must find a way to keep moving forward– and see if they can make their own dreams come true on the way.  

Famously difficult to do well, ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ is the blueprint of jukebox musicals. With timeless classics ranging from ‘Shake your Groove Thing’ to ‘Hot Stuff’ thrusting camp upon the audience from the get-go, Priscilla surpasses itself with a surprisingly insightful commentary on the changing generations of drag – delivered easily through the trio’s messy spats on the value of lip-syncing versus singing.
Adele Anderson’s (Fascinating Aida) solos and duets as Bernadette are masterclasses in classy-but-camp, while Nick Hayes’ vocals prophesise a glittering future for Felicia’s singing career. Also a treat was the young Harper Etienne as Tick’s son Benjy, whose unbelievable duet with his father (Kevin Clifton) had the crowd in a manic frenzy – a true delight to watch.  

The ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ musical comes just more than 30 years after the release of the original film, which was based on the lives of three real-life drag queens and became a worldwide sensation. Now considered a cult classic, the original Priscilla was far ahead of its time with its portrayal of LGBTQ+ culture, and the musical, in many ways, remains far ahead of ours. As hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people have skyrocketed over the past five years – rising by 88% among transgender people in particular – it has become increasingly rare to see scenes of bigotry given the same weight and horror that Priscilla affords. The music cuts, the stage stills, and we are left to stare; queer people are adored until the sun rises, Bernadette says – and we in the audience must sit with the characters through every second past dawn.  

‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ is a tremendous rendition of a tremendous film, and comes to the UK at a time where queer culture needs desperately to be more embraced. The musical is an electric cocktail of debauchery and depth, with a clattering ego that’s rare to encounter outside of Canal Street’s smokiest balconies. Classy, flexible, and sharply polished, ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ is the queen of the Palace Theatre.  

Priscilla Queen of the Desert is at the Opera House, Manchester from 19-28 February before continuing on tour. Age guidance 14+

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The Salford-born comedian takes the lead at Manchester Opera House for the fourth consecutive Christmas alongside his popular panto sidekick and Britain’s Got Talent finalist, Ben Nickless.

Both comics get time on stage to showcase their individual talents – Manford his warm, hilarious stand-up and strong musical theatre vocals; and Nickless his dynamic physical comedy and quick-fire impressions, bringing in a whole host of famous faces from Michael McIntyre to Donald Trump.

But it is when they are working together as a double act that the sparks really fly. After four years of pantomime together, Manford and Nickless make a comfortable double act whose joint focus is on making sure the audience, and especially the kids, have a fantastic time. The roving kiss-cam encouraging the young ones in the crowd to pull funny faces is a particular highlight.

This year the action moves to Sherwood Forest as the pair take on the roles of Robin Hood and Little Willie (cue lots of silly innuendo that has the youngsters rolling about). People who haven’t seen Manford recently might be surprised to see his new trim self. The 44-year-old has been chronicling his weight loss on social media. But as he says in the show, “there’s nothing like finding out you’re doing Robin Hood men in tights, to get you into shape.”

The pair are joined by an energetic cast. Landi Oshinowo adds sass to her sparkle as Spirit of Sherwood, her fun-side given free reign as the wig comes off in the fast-paced 12 Days of Christmas routine. Sarah Vaughan brings Maid Marion to the fore of the action with strong vocals and impressive swashbuckling. While the villain of the piece, Adam Strong wins cheers for his solo singing as Sheriff of Nottingham, his strong voice making the audience forget for a moment he is the one there for the boos and hisses.

As always with the Opera House pantomime the staging is spectacular. I don’t want to spoil the surprises, but you might want to take a raincoat if you’re sitting in the first few rows. The only downside is the lighting surrounding the stage – huge LED circles facing the audience. For some scenes I can see it can add atmosphere but for others it is genuinely distracting and feels like a juggernaut on full beam coming towards you. If you are light sensitive, it is something to consider.

That aside, this is a fantastic family show that is sure to delight children and adults alike.

Robin Hood is at the Opera House, Manchester from 6 December 2025 to 4 January 2026.

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Jerry Travers (Phillip Attmore), a Broadway sensation, helps an old boy out by coming to London to be in Horace Hardwick’s (James Hume) show. Horace’s wife, Madge (Sally Ann Triplett), though legendary and adored, is bleeding him dry and he needs Jerry’s all-round talent to put bums on seats. Jerry will do anything for a pal but it’s all on the hush hush so no one sees him before the big event and also for us, so mistaken identity and mild peril can ensue. So madcap and kefuffling is the topsy-turvy of the piece that a real-life counterpart would be scathed for life.

Listen, it’s not the greatest of plots but if you love Art Deco glitz, Hollywood-infused dancing and singing, and a brilliant cast to do it – do you care? Really? This isn’t a plot-driven drama, it’s a fun night out with amazing all-rounders giving it large and lavish. It takes you back to the black-and-white films, with effortless sweeping of the stage in feathers and diamonds, male characters who are much lighter on their feet than they are allowed in everyday life. The men are wry, brow-beaten and confused by women. The women are exasperated, wise and tricksy. It’s fun, frolicky and all entirely on the surface. It’s a happy-hour cocktail at the start of the festive season.

It’s a beautiful revolving Quality Street tin of Berlin bangers. The set – a big Art Deco glass and wrought-iron fan – supplies an outside image of a skyline that depicts where we are but also serves, many times, as restaurant, stage set or bedroom.

Attmore enthralls us as Jerry, and Amara Okereke as his feisty love interest matches him, bringing a peppy confidence and strong presence. But for me the older characters have a true dramatic depth I really enjoyed: Triplett as Madge reminded my friend of Kathleen Turner; comedy timing with a varied register always makes a great impact. Hume as Horace grounds us in real dramatic acting – not playing to the gods but finding the real truth in the moment, which is a rare skill to pull off in a fru-fru story.

There is a lot of over-explaining to be done in the dialogue, so that the plot will work. But if you really think about it, we tend to be very selective in what we will accept when it comes to musicals. In Top Hat, as with most musicals, you have people bursting into song every two minutes and passersby join in – all in the same colour palette with synchronised movements. We are more than happy to go with this convention, so why not accept the ludicrous nature of a story also?

So finely presented and so needed is the nostalgia and trimmings in this show, we are more than happy to suspend our disbelief entirely to escape into a wonderful time. And it really provides that. Because the beauty of the show is the dancing, the songs, the cheeky humour based around how women and men were at the time. Even the hidden sexuality that comes through with innuendo is treated exactly how it should be- fixed in a moment in time. It’s two hours well spent.

Top Hat is at the Opera House, Manchester from 25 to 29 November 2025.

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Creating a childlike sleeping fantasy of elation and melancholy, played out by fools.

Lots of people, me included, say they hate or fear clowns. But that’s only when those clowns are hiding behind make-up, giving us a face that lulls us into trusting them, and underneath it lies a dark secret – the way life can be, in all its terror and disaster.

But with Slava Polunin’s clowns, it’s different. The make-up doesn’t hide anything. It opens up something ancient and tender. These clowns hold up a mirror, and it can be cruel. But most likely it’s innocent, most likely it’s trying to be brave and happy. They invite us to be silly, reactive and play along, just as much as we play together.

Slava Polunin, the creator of the show in 1993, is one of the world’s most celebrated clowns. Since then, the show has travelled to more than 80 countries, winning countless awards and delighting thousands.

As a spectacle, it can’t be beaten. The set consists of objects from a children’s bedroom turned into magical stories – a ball, a lamp, cobwebs, a duvet and its stuffing, a bed. There are also other elements that may exist in other rooms of a house – a broom, a rope, a dustbin, a swinging ceiling light and a coat stand.

And with these tools at hand, stories are told in vast landscapes and terrains, some of which the audience help to make in a way that doesn’t feel participatory, but the most natural thing to do. Foreboding figures exist with playful ones. There are a troupe of green-jacketed lollopers in worn-out deerstalker hats and unfeasibly long earflaps jutting out horizontally. And one fluffy yellow fellow with red furry shoes and an adorable vibe-this is Assissai.

To understand how you buy into the wonderment so quickly, you have to go and see the show. It is something about how you totally cannot get a handle on a strong narrative thread. You watch instances, you enjoy physical comedy and feel sorrow and joy all at the same time, all together, alone.

The green men shuffle in, ridiculous and weary, while Assissai wobbles through it all with a gentle purpose. There’s no tidy storyline to follow, no neat arc. Just fragments and moments. We watch, we feel, and before we know it, we’ve joined in.

You watch physical comedy. You feel sorrow. You feel cheered. You laugh at the same time as anticipating bittersweet tears. The ensemble shifts height and shape, becoming giants and children all in one breath. They’re tricksters and philosophers, ridiculous and profound.

Slava’s Snowshow has survived for more than thirty years because it’s not really a show about clowns at all. It’s about us. About the tiny foolishness of being human. About the way happiness and grief love each other. It’s about softness, and storms.

At the end, you leave when the moment is right. Until then, the microcosm of the human race is giving a standing ovation by jumping up and down in the circle and stalls; hitting gigantic and colourful balls.

Slava’s Snow Show is at the Opera House Manchester from 22-26 October 2025.

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The story centres around four shift pals at seaside supermarket Better Best Buys. They rib each other, lift each other’s spirits and hope for the absolute best. Caz (fabulous captain of the Here and Now ship, Rebecca Lock), is going through the process of adoption with her sparky partner Gareth (Chris Grahamson). Gorgeous straight talking Vel (Jacqui Dubois) knows the light has gone out on her relationship with Lesley (John Stacey) and she needs to dump him (John Stacey absolutely living the dance routines in act two gave me joy). Young creative Neeta (Rosie Singha) makes avant garde food-based portraits of celebrities and finds every excuse not to tell affable fitty Ben (Ben Darcy) that she adores him. Then there’s young carefree gay Robbie (Blake Patrick Anderson), he’s free and easy although the girls believe he’s looking for more than that really. When we meet the gang, Caz is gearing everyone up ready for better days ahead, that may just be kickstarted by her upcoming 50th.

There’s a lot to get the gist of in the first 10 mins and thanks to the expertise of Shaun Kitchener, who is a multi-story master, we easily hold all these narrative threads.  I especially enjoyed the light touch of the love story of Robbie and drag queen Jem (River Medway giving Eartha Kitt via a tray of chips realness) not heavy with conflict, just naturally played out in a really sweet way. These threads are tied up with golden, well place Steps songs arranged by Matt Spencer-Smith, until we are fully stocked up on resolutions by the time we are on our feet for the finale.

Tom Rogers clever set frames the production with the whole proscenium arch holding concert lighting cleverly integrated as stocked up shelves. On stage, tills and shelves are wheeled around to indicate different places around the supermarket. The bright lights of BBB are complemented by a glimpse of real hope beyond the doors – the open ocean. This harmonises with the themes of putting yourself out there and embracing the chills and thrills of life in the hope of one day riding high on life. The cast rock tabards designed by Gabriella Slade all the way through the show from hot pink on the tills, to yellow with gold bananas on if they are doing the fruit and veg.

It’s not hard to see why people are calling Here and Now the new Mamma Mia. I liked it a bit more than Mamma Mia actually, because I can’t afford to go to Santorini, but I can defo go to a supermarket by the sea. And the stories were a mix of camp melodrama weighted underneath by the heartbreak of maternal Caz who knows she was, is, and always will be – a mum.

The show is something special and not least because with Robbie and Caz, it celebrates a beautiful connection between an important theatre demographic. With Robbie, gay men who may have loved Steps since they were their secret sanctuary, can see a story where the hatred of the world doesn’t go to do its shopping. With Caz, we have an archetype of the women who carry and tend to the world. They also, in my experience (cos I am one), like musicals that let them feel like girls again. I don’t think of this in a cynical way, I think of this as giving an audience a story that elevates them.  Here and Now puts a call out over the Tannoy – ‘could all the Robbies please go to aisles 5, 6, 7, 8 where the Cazs are waiting for them. Thank you.’

Here and Now is a really good time. And no one loved the evening more than Steps themselves. Right before the show started and the audience were settled, in they came to take their seats. Decked out in silver and white, waving, smiling and engaging with an audience that were enthralled to see them. They were best placed for everyone in the stalls to see them enjoying their songs and the show. I felt good for them. And for me. Everything turned out the best it could be.

My advice is – go and see it before it’s riding the seventh wave in the West End.

Here & Now the Steps Musical is at the Opera House, Manchester from 2 to 13 September 2025 before continuing on tour. Read our interview with the cast.

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Two hapless gentrifiers have a new baby and are doing up their bargain home. Annoying know-it-all Sam (Kevin Clifton) has been off star gazing somewhere and exhausted new mum Jenny (Stacey Dooley) is shaken by the eerie goings on in the baby’s bedroom each night at 2.22.  For what I think may be a bit of harmless sexual tension – Sam and Jenny invite over Sam’s old and clearly untrustworthy uni mate Lauren (Shvorne Marks) and her new boyfriend Ben (Grant Kilburn) the builder for a dinner party. They all decide, to hang around and stay up until 2.22 so Jenny can prove there is a ghost in the house. Lots of chatter, drinking, and friction happens and a seance ensues as we creep up to 2.22.

Let’s start with the set design by Anna Fleischle. I would have been put off buying this place by the terrifyingly high ceilings. We get a glimpse of the stairs which logistically must be two-foot steep to get up to the bedrooms. I spent quite a bit of time at first, trying to work out whether they have knocked out a ceiling but no, the old wallpaper that is still visible goes from bottom to top. I can’t remember why Frank (the previous owner’s dead husband) died but pneumonia would make sense. You couldn’t heat that place with the small gas fire they had and now these idiots have knocked through. For no practical or obvious aesthetic purpose whatsoever either, the old couple or the new couple have put a large digital clock above the door leading to the stairs. It’s a bit like something you’d see in a hospital waiting room. This works really well for the suspense of time passing up to the 2.22 – when we expect the ghost – but would make no practical sense to either homeowners. Jenny believes that the ghost is very upset by the renovations and at one point thinks they have summoned the spirits by putting in the patio doors. With all this considered, it’s got some really promising elements to be a dark comedy that sends itself up, but the script doesn’t let that happen.

Regarding the story – there’s a lot of exposition to create to suspense and intrigue. This feels rushed as a device and after all this time could have been finessed. The script benefits from Danny Robins interesting facts here and there, but that is placed within conversations leading nowhere except some hit and miss jokes. It’s a drawn-out, short form story by the feel of it. It could have leaned heavier on the gentrification; it could have leaned towards the dark comedy elements and send up the characters or even on the displacement of the foxes who are constantly screaming.

Certain scary things happen, great ghost story tropes that are clever, like a surprise thing with a teddy bear. But the actual jump scares have no relevance to the story. What we are actually scared of is the convention, nothing to do with what unfolds but just a production trick to make us jump unexpectedly. And that takes us entirely away from being involved in the story.

We are asked to be quiet and not tell anyone what happens and in respect for those who will enjoy it, I won’t. The play will be popular and forgiven because it always has a great cast. And that is what makes the play so successful. It is worth going particularly for Stacey Dooley and Grant Kilburn’s performances.

2:22 A Ghost Story is at The Opera House, Manchester from 7 to 16 August 2025 before continuing on tour.

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For anyone of a certain age, the resemblance, mannerisms and stage presence of the three actors – Damian Williams as Cooper, Bob Golding as Morecambe and Simon Cartwright as Monkhouse – will come as nothing short of miraculous. Each of them has played their characters in different productions and it was the inspired idea of writer Paul Hendy to bring them together in one setting.

The curtain rises on Cooper alone in the dressing room wearing a pair of giant chicken feet (what else?) and his trademark look of bafflement at the world around him. He is soon followed by Monkhouse and Morecambe, with Monkhouse being the butt of gentle ribbing from the other two. Gags come thick and fast, as to be expected, and as the play progresses we gain an insight into the insecurities and interior lives of the three comedians. Both Cooper and Morecambe drink heavily and are fighting serious health conditions, while Monkhouse frets over whether he is truly funny compared to the other two. When Monkhouse asks Cooper if he has ever died on stage, the question takes on added piquancy.

The show is as much about the why of comedy as the how: Morecambe asks why they put themselves though the stress and agony of performance, wondering if the audience will still find them funny. Tellingly, he admits that he could not go on stage without Ernie and could not survive as a solo artist. At one stage, he reveals that he was hyperactive as a child, a remark which reminded me of a comment from his son who, when asked about what it was like having a famous comedian as a father, replied that it was difficult because his dad was always ‘on’. He could never just be a dad, but felt compelled to perform even in front of his son.

Monkhouse is the over-analyser, not just of his jokes but his personal life too, one scarred by tragedy: the suicide of a comedy partner, one son who suffered from cerebral palsy and another who he was estranged from.

But there is plenty of light among the shade. Gags fly past thick and fast and the three take delight in each other’s comic genius. Without issuing a spoiler alert, there is a surprise coda to the show in which the actors come back on stage and the audience is invited to ask questions about their characters alongside compere Richard Hodder.

Who has the last laugh? Of course, it’s always the audience.

The Last Laugh is at the Opera House, Manchester from 29 July to 2 August 2025 before continuing on tour

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For those who don’t know what DDLJ stands for, it is short for the 1995 Hindi-language film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, which is still showing in Mumbai cinemas 30 years after its first screening.

Its loyal fan base is clear, with audience whoops as soon as the band strikes up. The stage version clearly has a lot to live up to, so can it do it?

Well, excitement of the audience aside (and there is a lot of anticipation of what is to come), the show opens with a wow factor that leaves us in no doubt of the scale of this production. It feels like the glitz and glamour of Bollywood has landed in Manchester with no expense spared.

Derek McLane’s imposing sets coupled with Akhila Krishnan’s projections make for an immersive mix that immediately draw us in whether that setting be Oxford or the Punjab.

The live band, under the musical direction of Benjamin Holder, lifts the mood from the opening bars. There are 18 new English songs in this production. I can’t say that I left singing any of them, but on the first viewing of a musical I wouldn’t necessarily expect to. The tunes are certainly easy on the ear, with an infectious Disney-esk feel good vibe. Add Rob Ashford’s energetic choreography and it is a winning vibrant mix for any musical.

The stage version also has the hand of the original film director Aditya Chopra, who was 23 when he directed the original film. Some of the elements remain the same in so far as it tells of a clashing of cultures – east and west. But the stage version adds another layer by swapping the original Raj character for Rog, the party-loving son of a tech billionaire.

Rog (Ashley Day) and Simran (Jena Pandya) are both studying philosophy at Oxford, with varying success. While Rog is sleeping his way through classes Simran is busy studying for her dissertation on what it means to love. But how will the theory stand up when Simran finds herself faced with the real thing? As the two are thrown together during a month-long inter-railing trip around Europe will head or heart win out?

Sparks definitely fly between these two very likable leads who keep us invested in an otherwise predictable story.

Nell Benjamin, who comes with top stage writing credentials, having penned the book for Mean Girls and Legally Blonde, has updated the book and lyrics to widen its appeal for a 21st century and largely western audience. As you might expect, there are plenty of witty lines but there is also a lot of broad-brushed stereotyping that feels heavy handed, particularly in the first act and weakens what could otherwise be a terrific show.

As it is, there is still much to love here with almost three hours of frivolous fun for your money. The Holi Hai finale is joyous and will leave you itching to join in.

Come Fall in Love the DDLJ Musical is at the Opera House, Manchester from 29 May to 21 June 2025.

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