Back to the Future: The Musical

Billy Edwards comments on the musical based on the classic 80s film

Billy Edwards Review

Back To The Future: The Musical’ on the West End is another instalment in the series of unusual pairings of popular culture and musical theatre. This hit in London’s Adelphi Theatre came after a long trend of unlikely shows, from Great British Bake Off The Musical, Only Fools And Horses, and Peaky Blinders. Yet, this adaption of an outright classic film pays dividends to its magic.

Seeing the original ‘Back To The Future’ film is paramount in any situation, but this should make an ample introduction. In 1985, the cool-asthey-come Marty McFly is unwittingly slung back to 1955 in a time machine made from a DeLorean sports car. Before he can return, he must persuade the harebrained scientist Doc Emmett Brown to help evade the ultimate high school bully of cinema, Biff, and save his parent’s relationship, thus saving himself from being wiped from history. No matter how many times you’ve seen the film, it’s a thrilling, pace-perfect story, not a day over forty. With much news made lately of boisterous, tipsy crowds at London musicals, the story is too gripping to want to drop your attention.

There are big shoes for the cast to fill, but they pay homage to the original cinema legends. Ben Joyce is immediately likable as Marty, and Oliver Nicholas is a dead ringer for Marty’s Dad George, sensationally so. It is quite extraordinary that the musical dedicates a song to his introduction as a peeping tom, but it works to capture the endearingly ridiculous features of the original text. The role of Doc Brown must be