High School Musical review and star rating: ★★★★

Musicals have always looked to film and TV for inspiration, and nostalgia is increasingly a driver for commissioners. West End productions of Clueless, The Devil Wears Prada and 50 First Dates have belted their way over from Hollywood, although the announcement of a musical version of High School Musical felt more surprising. 

While there are undoubtedly HSM diehards, with this stage adaptation, even fans of the original film are asking, “why now?” The Zac Efron movies are generous, frothy fun, but perhaps don’t ironically translate to adult viewing in quite the same way as other noughties classics.

Whatever the case, despite this stage adaptation chiming with the 20th anniversary of the first film, this musical feels like a left-field booking for the Troubadour Theatre, the new 2,000 capacity venue in Wembley whose last show, Starlight Express, was an Andrew Lloyd Webber smash hit. 

High School Musical: Zingy choreography

Anyway, it turns out everybody wants to see High School Musical, the musical, with a script from David Simpatico and musical arrangements from producer Bryan Louiselle: tickets for this new production are nearly sold out for my preview performance.

First off, the new Troubadour Theatre is an astonishing gain for London theatre. It is re-purposing the former TV studios that hosted the live recordings of The X Factor, and the same shiny floor glamour from the building’s TV days is retained in this expensive-looking adaptation.

As for the show, this isn’t an immersive gimmick like you might think, but a real piece of theatre, even if we’re initially thrown into a set up involving audience engagement. Cheerleaders are engaging with the audience from the stage before the ‘show’ begins, and in this impressive space, you feel like you’re about to watch a live recording of Simon Cowell’s defunct reality show, or at least something major and televisual: everything’s enormous, from the sky-high lighting rigs to the East High wall hangings and full-size basketball court which forms the stage.

Glistening production

It’s a precursor to co-directors Joseph Houston and William Whelton’s glistening, exciting production that does justice to the original film’s energy and youthful vigour.

This adaptation is mostly a blow-by-blow account of the original film, although there are a few new scenes, which I won’t spoil here, other than to say nothing fundamentally changes the plot. One thought about David Simpatico’s script: there is a missed opportunity for the character of Ryan to come out as gay. Original High School Musical director Kenny Ortega stated in 2020 that he was intended to be LGBTQ in the film, but it was felt that Disney weren’t ready to back a gay lead in 2006. So it’s a shame Ryan doesn’t quite get to rewrite history here. 

Anyway, as a production as a whole, this is a zingy, well choreographed, well sung adaptation of the story that follows high school stud Troy Bolton as he attempts to balance his commitments to the school’s basketball team with his new interest in performing in the high school musical. All the while, he’s navigating his crush on school friend Gabriella.

Glued to Caitlin Tipping

While Tobias Turley and Leonor Correia belt well as the central couple, it can be hard to get a read on their Troy and Gabriella. Their shyness is partly the point – neither leads are the most charismatic characters in the film – but still, these lovers should sparkle more with playful energy and personality.

I was glued to Caitlin Tipping’s Sharpay Evans, the majorly extroverted singer always trying to get Troy’s attention. Tipping’s Sharpay is posher and more statuesque, and slightly more eccentric in her mannerisms, but a solid comic performance is backed up by equally stonking vocals. She’s brilliant in a similar way as she was during her turn as Celine Dion recently in Titanique. Luke Bayer’s Ryan Evans is fairly true to the film: you endure to his vulnerable, likeable Ryan. 

The two major pulls are the musical numbers and the adult cast, though, which features former McFly singer Harry Judd and former film cast member Kaycee Stroh, who played Martha Cox in the movies and has graduated into the arts teacher Ms Darbus for the stage adaptation. Stroh is so much fun as the pretentious, always gesticulating creative, who argues airily about how the arts are more important than sports when it comes to vying for Troy’s time. Stroh brings texture and depth, though, and never plays it as caricature. Judd is better than you might think in conveying emotion as Troy’s slightly toxic dad-cum-basketball coach.

Vivid, playful choreography

As for those song-and-dance scenes, well, the tracks still sound killer, Aaron Renfree’s vivid, playful choreography translating them sparklingly onto the stage, though I found the crowd surprisingly sedate. The production never encourages standing, even for the closing numbers, even though the main tracks, including Stick to the Status Quo, Breaking Free and We’re All In This Together have dated brilliantly. 

Still, everyone finally gets a chance to stand up and sing and dance when the production essentially crow bars in a final reprieve of all the major numbers so that everyone can film them. That’s the only disappointing bit; I rather enjoyed when phones were in our pockets and we were all in this together, like the song told us to be. It’s a shame to dilute the end of the story for the sake of an Instagram moment, but hey, that’s the world we live in. Still, a minor gripe about an altogether gleaming adaptation.

High School Musical plays at the Troubadour Theatre until 3 January 2027