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London-based Disney-loving musical theatre fans who have been struggling to let the imminent closure of the West End’s ‘Frozen’ go are about to receive some serious compensation: it’s been confirmed today (June 24) that the new adaptation of 1997’s Hercules will go into Theatre Royal Drury Lane in summer 2025.
Okay, there is admittedly a reason why it’s taken so long for ‘Hercules’ to hit the stage. After Disney’s insane late ’80s-to-mid-’90s hot streak of animated movies that was ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘Aladdin’ and ‘The Lion King’, the Greek myth-derived ‘Hercules’ was very clearly a cultier affair: profitable, but modestly so.
Still, it very definitely has its fans, and Disney songwriting legend Alan Menken has kept the faith over the years, with this stage version very much his baby. There have so far been two productions in the US and one in Germany; all of them have been on the smaller side, relatively speaking, but for Hercules’s latest labour his namesake musical will go into one of the biggest theatre in the West End next year.
Information is relatively scant, but it appears this will be a version of the Hamburg production, as it is directed and choreographed by that production’s helmsman Casey Nicholaw. It’ll use the most recent book for the show as well, which is co-written by Robert Horn and our very own Kwame Kwei-Armah.
Will it be any good? The US incarnations received mixed reviews, but musicals are notorious for taking years to get right and it sounds like the Hamburg production (pictured above) is effectively a tryout for the West End (which will ultimately be a tryout for Broadway). In other words, keep an open mind – unless you are actually in the relatively selective group that is die-hard fans of the film, in which case you’re undoubtedly in for a treat.
‘Hercules’ will run at Theatre Royal Drury Lane next summer. Sign up here for more information as it’s announced.
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