Back to the Future the Musical - Opera House MCR / Adelphi

There was a BTTF performance just now on the Lord Mayor's Show broadcast (BBC1) - 'Marty' (Ollie Dobson) and the DeLorean with 'Marty' singing 'The Power Of Love'.

Yeah, was that sung live or mimed? Sounded live, and impressive. Some West End performers can do that I guess, while others need to be in their theatres on stage……..

Caught the show this afternoon on a £25 day seat from TodayTix - quite the bargain! Row K of the stalls - a perfect seat to take it all in.

Stays fairly faithful to the film except for a few changes and I loved the special effects. The last race in the car to the clock tower was a particular highlight for me!

Cast great - main two were on and are a great duo. George McFly also a standout.

Some great songs in there, others a bit ‘meh’ but pleasant and serviceable enough.

Just got back from seeing this one this afternoon. I had low expectations, so I was actually pleasantly surprised. The special effects were amazing. My biggest issue with the show is the actual songs. Some of them I thought were excellent, but some of them really made it look like a High School play. I think they should drop a few of the songs and perhaps replace them with more dialogue.
TIghten up the show a little bit. The parts (and songs) which work, work REALLY well. The parts which don't drag down the rest.

That being said, I am still giving it ****. It was probably a *** play, but the ending was so exhilarating that it pushes all of the negativity away. This isn't a great musical, but it was a lot of fun.

Went last night. A lot of my thoughts echo the criticisms already mentioned. I will add that we had Mark Oxtoby on as Doc Brown. Despite my initial disappointment at not seeing Roger Bart (I'm unlikely to return to see this again) Mark was fantastic in the role! I thought that he and Olly Dobson were excellent. The standout performance for me was Hugh Coles as George McFly. The audience LOVED his portrayal. Excellent. There were a lot of fans in which was fun to be a part of as a big fan of the films myself.

As a very jumpy person startled by most loud noises I was glad that this wasn't too in your face. Most pyros are silent and the thunder sound effects not too crazy! The only sudden startling one was when 

The final 20 minutes are visually impressive and particularly exciting.

Yeah this is now the 4th time I’ve had a ticket for this show and Olly has been out. Obviously people are allowed to call out but they need to but it’s a bit ridiculous with him.

Stopped by the box office to hopefully catch Olly today and they told me he’s still out. “He’s very ill”, the nice man who works there said.

That’s not even close to the first time I’ve heard that when inquiring about him being in, though.

Cancelled today and tomorrow....today's matinee cancelled 90 minutes before curtain. People on Twitter are NOT happy.

Maybe not but a lot of them have travelled 2-3 hours to find out they're not getting a show, they're allowed to be a bit miffed.

Saw this in the afternoon and have to agree with the the more critical reviews

Watching this there was a general feeling that this barely justifies its existence as a musical

The main problem is that it is chock full of unremarkable songs that bloats a 2 hour film into a 2 hour and 45 minute unmemorable musical. What moments of simple dialogue scenes that could drive character development and story gets swamped by these endless songs

Could this have worked as a musical? Of course. But Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard lack the creativity here to conceive that. Was you get is an pale imitation of the film with songs thrown in. They don’t even hide it when Marty gives a knowing look at the audience before strumming the guitar on the amplifier at the start

It was telling that the highlight for me was the chase with the bullies by the end of act 1. When there was actual business going on and it became a stage adaptation trying to do its own thing

The other highlight was Roger Bart as Doc bringing some humour to proceeding and . Even if it’s a mixture of imitating the character and doing the same schtick he did as Carmen in The Producers, yelling words and so on

The others did a good job recreating the characters onstage. Especially Will Haswell who was on as Marty McFly

I suppose I went to see this for the production values. Frankly I expected more. I too felt the car was slow on the contraption in the finale and in the end it’s the same effect you get at the London Palladium and the other Qdos/Crossroads pantomimes

And there were other set pieces that I felt were lacking. Particularly the Goldie Wilson number with that simple frame. Moments like that where I thought “Is that all you’ve got?”.

I felt some of the projections looked a bit on the murky side. I saw Life of Pi in the evening and the projections looked better in my opinion

This isn't awful. I just came out of this thinking there’s a better musical in this that was never realised. It’s just Back to the Future the experience, with added songs

2.5 stars from me

Well, I took my daughters to this today - they've never seen the film and 1985 is the dark ages to them. They loved it. Interesting to get their view, having not watched the film - to them it stood up well as a great theatre experience. I hope this show (along with the rest) can ride out the empty seats and return to full houses once again.