I’m walking past the theatre district the other night, and I swear I thought I’d taken a wrong turn into an earlier age. Back to the Future in giant neon. Down the street The Lion King (again). Around the corner The Devil Wears Prada and right there in the middle? A whole pack of spotted dogs 101 Dalmatians and a heroic shout-out to Hercules. It’s like my Disney+ queue crew legs and rented a stage.
Now, don’t get me wrong I love a good nostalgia trip as much as the next person. There’s a certain thrill in seeing a favourite film come alive with real actors and live music but lately, it feels like theatre’s leaning on film reboots a little too much and by “a little,” I mean… a lot!!!!
I get why it happens. These shows are tourist magnets. If you’ve flown in from halfway across the world, there’s comfort in picking a title you already know you’ll enjoy but here’s the thing I think even tourists want more than just the familiar. They came to the theatre capital of the world, not to rewatch what they could have streamed on the plane. They want to be surprised, wowed, maybe even confused in a good way.
And we know audiences will show up for originality. Look at The White Rose at the Marylebone Theatre a gripping, moving piece based on history, not Hollywood. Or Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which might be linked to a Netflix hit, but tells its own unique prequel story written for the stage. Even Witness for the Prosecution and The Mousetrapprove that you don’t need a film first to build decades of box office success.
Producers, of course, have to think about the bottom line, and a show with a built-in fanbase is safer than betting on something brand new. Why gamble on an unknown playwright when you can put Marty McFly on a hoverboard, dress up a hundred actors in dog spots, and call it a day?
But theatre isn’t supposed to be safe. It’s supposed to surprise you. Make you think, or laugh, or cry in ways you didn’t see coming. When every marquee is a movie title we already know, the real surprises the new voices, the wild ideas, the risks get shoved off to the sidelines.
There are exceptions, of course. The Lion King earns its keep because it doesn’t just copy the movie it transforms it, with breathtaking puppetry you can’t get on a screen. That’s when adaptation works: when it’s a reinvention, not just a replay.
So maybe next time you’re buying tickets, try the one you’ve never heard of. Give a new story a chance. Because if theatre becomes nothing but Hollywood reruns, we’re losing the very thing that makes live performance worth leaving your front door for!