Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre | Opening Night, 12 October 2026

I’m not one to give a standing ovation. I’m not one to give in to a gimmick, and I’m certainly never won over by nostalgia alone, but…

High School Musical was everything a millennial could ever want, and so much more!

Starlight, who?

You know the songs (well, actually, you probably don’t know them all!), you know the story, but imagine it performed in what essentially becomes an arena by the finale, and made somehow even more cheese-stuffed-crust, with all the toppings you could ever eat.

I cried. Several times. And yes, I am willing to admit that I maybe enjoyed it all the more for having had a truly rotten few weeks, but I have no notes. None.

I am perfectly capable of having a good time at the theatre. Particularly when a piece knows what it is, gives in fully to the aesthetic, trusts that the audience are on the side of the production, and understands that they’re capable of handling more than a few differences from the source material.

And there are differences. Plenty of them. But rather than attempting to recreate the film, this production seems determined to make something properly theatrical out of it.

The soundtrack, in my humble opinion, is made so much better by the musical theatre treatment. Duets work beautifully where there were none, backing vocals galore give some of the flatter songs from the film extra depth, and hearing it all performed live just makes total sense.

The arrangements are richer, fuller and frequently surprising. Just when you think you know exactly where a song is going, the production takes it somewhere else. It’s a rare pleasure to be so familiar with the material and yet find yourself repeatedly caught off guard by it.

The vocals were on point, everyone in that cast brought 1000% energy, the choreography was ridiculously tight, and the commitment to the bit was so refreshing.

KayCee Stroh, who played Martha Cox in the original film, is absolute perfection as Ms Darbus. Caitlin Tipping and Luke Bayer are similarly brilliant as Sharpay and Ryan, and I particularly enjoyed that Bayer’s Ryan is somewhat more overtly gay-coded without the production ever feeling the need to make a thing of it.

Tobias Turley and Leonor Correia, meanwhile, are allowed to make Troy and Gabriella their own rather than offering impressions of Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens. That’s an important distinction. The familiarity is there, but the performances aren’t shackled to it.

And really, this is an ensemble piece. The sheer amount of work happening around the principal performers is extraordinary.

The production makes wonderfully effective use of the space, particularly when it’s at its busiest. The basketball games, for instance, are where the show really comes into its own, filling the auditorium with movement, energy and people.

The quieter moments are remarkably effective too. Lockers become staircases, a few desks and chairs establish a classroom, and somehow it all feels like enough.

I’m usually the first to moan about a lack of set pieces or productions where you haven’t the faintest idea where anything is supposed to be happening. But here, the relative simplicity works. There’s enough furniture, movement and general hubbub to establish each location, and the production embraces its limitations rather than trying to disguise them.

And spare a thought for the poor people having to get all those tables, desks and chairs up and down the ramps. The amount of physical work involved must be exhausting. It may as well be a concert for the amount of energy being expended.

The fact that the action rarely stays in one place was particularly fortunate for me, as I spent Act One sitting behind a very tall person who apparently couldn’t keep his head still. Thankfully, there’s so much happening across the space that I was rarely left with nothing to watch.

High School Musical is not Shakespeare, although they’re now auditioning for Juliet & Romeo instead of Twinkletowne, and you’re certainly not going for high art.

But that doesn’t mean the production should be treated as disposable entertainment.

I honestly expected something a little more copy-and-paste. Something cheap and cheerful, much like the original film itself. Instead, this feels big, confident and completely unashamed of what it is.

It’s also refreshing to see a Disney property treated with this much theatrical imagination. Credit where it’s due: Mary Poppins is phenomenal, and the original tour of Beauty and the Beast was stunning. But I’ve never felt Disney’s own theatrical adaptations consistently capture the personality of their source material.

What makes this independently produced High School Musical so refreshing is that it doesn’t mistake taking the material seriously for taking itself seriously. It’s a celebration of everything that made the original film so beloved, rather than an attempt to turn it into something more prestigious.

Perhaps most importantly, everyone on that stage appears to be having the absolute time of their lives. And that makes an enormous difference.

It’s worth remembering, too, that this was opening night: the production’s very first performance at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre. You might reasonably expect a few rough edges as a show settles into a new venue, but there was remarkably little evidence of that from where I was sitting.

By the finale, the auditorium has practically become an arena. The energy is infectious, the spectacle is ridiculous, and the whole thing is so joyously over the top that resisting it feels almost pointless.

And while there’s certainly an audience of millennials who will come for the nostalgia, I genuinely think there’s something here for people discovering High School Musical for the first time. The richer score, the performances and the theatrical imagination give the material a life beyond the original film.

It’s not perfect, but it didn’t need to be.

This isn’t a production that relies solely on nostalgia. It takes something familiar, celebrates everything that made it wonderful in the first place, and somehow makes it feel new again.

I won’t harp on.

I loved it.

It was exactly what I expected, and so much more.