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So for some of you, this may seem like a redundant thing for me to say as a 30 year old. For others, it may be a shocking revelation that you instantly disagree with. However, I feel like after more than a decade of going back to see this show repeatedly and really enjoying it for some time, I may now be done with Heather's the Musical in a never need to see it again kind of a way. Because while back in the 2010s, this show was so very When I went to see it again last week in its new home at the Arts Theater at Marble Arch, it was little more me gently with a chainsaw. Let me tell you a little bit about how Heather's got here, but just before I do oh my God. Hey. Welcome back to my theater themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theater. I am a theater critic and a content creator here on social media and today we are talking all about Heather's the Musical and particularly the lifespan that it's had here in the uk. The show originated in the United States States where after some time it eventually returned. Currently running for a limited time at New World Stages Off Broadway, it has also recently begun performances in Australia I believe. But what we're going to focus on today is the prolific life that the show has had here in the West End because I was invited to go and see it in its brand new home last week with its new company. And ostensibly it's the same production of the show that I've been seeing for years now, but something about it is beginning to feel distinctly different and I've been trying to put my finger on what that is and why I struggled to really enjoy it this time around. Has it become the blood brothers of the adolescent theater going generation? Is this show just not for me anymore? What's happened to Heather's? I'm going to be sharing my thoughts on this topic, but as always I would love to hear yours as well. Let me know what you think of this show and whether you've seen it before in the comments section down below. And of course if you enjoy listening to this and would like to hear my thoughts on other shows and other topics, you can find many more discussions wherever you are seeing my face or hearing my voice and there will be many more coming soon. Make sure to subscribe here on YouTube with the notifications turned on so you don't miss any any upcoming videos or follow me on podcast platforms. For now though, let's Talk About Heathers. So let me take you back to a time when I really loved this show. And I wasn't the earliest adopter of Heather's because I wasn't following its Off Broadway life initially. I remember where I was standing at university when someone came up to me and we were talking about musical theater and they said, oh, have you listened to any of Heather's the Musical? I didn't really know what that was. I was only vaguely aware of the 1980s film upon which the musical is based. What I knew of it was that it had been referenced in Bunheads by Sutton Foster's character and that it was somewhat Mean Girls adjacent. Anyway, by the end of this conversation, this person had convinced me. At the very least I needed to go away and listen to Candy Store, which I did with my friends. And subsequently I became obsessed with it. I don't know if even then I listened to the entire show. I probably definitely listened to Dead Girl Walking and Freeze youe Brain, all of the big hits from the legitimately brilliant score that is Heather's I Will Defend this to the Ground, written, of course, by Kevin Murphy and expert of the adaptive genre Larry o'. Keefe. But we really became obsessed with it, particularly that bootleg video of the Off Broadway version of Candy Store. We were very excited. Everyone in the musical theatre society very quickly was becoming obsessed with Heathers. They wanted to do it as the show next year. The rights weren't available. I had to explain to everyone that they weren't going to let us do the European premiere. That just wasn't a possibility. I can still remember the. The actual argument that evolved as a result of, like, who was gonna get to do Dead Girl Walking in the summer showcase? Spoiler alert. The answer was nobody. Because there was no good way to make that decision. And even though that Off Broadway run seemed impossibly far away, before too long it was getting workshopped in London, then it was getting produced in London. And lo and behold, a London production happens at the other Palace Theatre. I think we booked first or second row tickets. We were so excited. And it was that rare thing of a London premiere that seemed almost more fully realized than the Off Broadway version. That we'd seen clips off the set was more substantial. They were writing new songs. It was transferring to the West End after some time. It was a really exciting time to enjoy Heather's the Musical. And here's something else that I will defend about it, because I do think there is something deceptively sophisticated there in the material. Tonally and yes, it is high school set. Yes, it is led by adolescent protagonists, so obviously it is going to speak to that generation. However, I. I don't necessarily think that musicals like Grease are wholly relegated to teenage audiences. I don't know that other people would agree with that either. I don't think a show like Dear Evan Hansen, like, we can have conversations about the shortcomings of shows like Grease and Dear Evan Hansen on stage, but it's not that, you know, they're only aimed at young people. And Heather's, in addition to that brilliant score that I told you about, has always balanced its campy, dark and witty tonality in its best moments. There is something strikingly subversive about this show that talks about teenage suicide, that talks about adolescent emotional neglect at the hands of the older generation, at the hands of parents and role models and teachers. It talks about toxic popularity, power struggles and bullying and emotionally abusive relationships. There's a lot going on in Heather's, but its success is hugely reliant on this very carefully balanced seesaw of the campy and the dark. And on the side of Campy, you have a lot of like nostalgic, retro 80s references. On the side of the dark you have so many of the events that take place, but almost all of these are framed with a certain quantity of comedy. Now, when it premieres in London, the show, both because of the proceeding Off Broadway run's success and because of A Candy Store and Dead Girl Walking, and also because of the initial casting of the hugely popular Carrie Hope Fletcher in the leading role of Veronica Sawyer, instantly finds itself a fan base. And to this day, I think it's probably one of the great case studies of how to really launch a new musical in the uk, because that initial launch for Heathers has made it an ongoing success and recognizable brand for generations of theatre fans. In the years since, it has been like just under a decade since Heathers was first seen at the other Palace. It transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It then closed there. I think thereafter there was a tour, but also when theaters were forced to shut down in 2020, when the theater Royal Haymarket was eventually ready to, with social distancing measures. But only Fools and Horses, the musical which was there, wasn't ready to reopen fully. Heather's reopened on that stage with a slightly different cast. And then after some time, there was a great homecoming. It went back to the other Palace Theatre, again with different casting. It toured once more around the uk. It then, when another opportunity arose, opened at at Soho Place The West End's newest theater. Well, what was then the West End's newest theater, after which, you guessed it, it toured again. And it's worth observing in all of this. I casually compared it to Blood Brothers earlier, a show that always seems to be on the touring network, just perpetually that the two share a producer alongside Heather's producer, Paul Taylor Mills. It is also has always been brought to the Stage in the UK by Bill Kenright Ltd. The production company of the late producer. Bill Kenright and BKL are also the producers of Blood Brothers. So it has begun to feel, with the number of return engagements and tours of Heathers, like they were sending out Blood Brothers to appeal to a certain generation, and then they were simultaneously or in parallel sending out Heathers to appeal to the other end of the spectrum. Which brings us to last week when Heathers reopened at what is now the West End's newest theater, the Arts at Marble Arch, a temporary venue which is set to house burlesque later this year. And we shall see how that goes. But it meant that once again, like a musical version of 222 A Ghost Story, Heathers was back in London and playing another different theater. And that lasting fan base that I told you about, the one that it did so well to attain at the beginning, has been showing up for the show consistently. I don't know whether it sells out at everything single regional venue that it visits, but to be able to tour so frequently, to be able to pop back up in London and once again have throngs of eager adolescent fans showing up in cosplay, that is a big deal. And that speaks to the impact that the show has had with its fans. And in that entire time, I saw the original Other palace run, I saw the original Haymarket run. I then saw the COVID era Haymarket return. I saw it on tour. I saw it back at the Other palace, potentially twice. I didn't see the subsequent tour, I didn't see it at Soho Place, but I did go to see it at the Arts at Marble Arch. So I have been back to see Heathers frequently, and it was always an easy show to return to because it's an easy enough watch, it's a cute enough watch. And the material, these songs and these cartoonish characters made me want to go and see talented performers who were subsequently taking on these roles. Which brings me to last week and my most recent visit to Heather's the Musical, which perhaps may also have been my last. Okay, so Heather's at Marble Arch. Let's start with the positives. Liberty Stotter was absolutely a standout of this company as a wonderful Heather Chandler. I thought she was hilarious. There is such comedy in this role. She arrives as this intense queen bee, dramatic, sort of iconic of a character. Really very Regina George, before there was Regina George. And she has to exact that authoritative energy. But that only lasts for so much of the show. Spoiler alert. Eventually, she becomes this kind of a warped comedy character with a lot of high energy, wacky material. I've never seen anyone be able to encapsulate the full dimension of this role quite as sensationally as Jody Steele was able to. She was one of the strongest members of what was a really fantastic original West End company, almost all of whom notably have gone on to very exciting projects since. I mean, the understudies in that cast alone, like Lauren Drew was an understudy in that cast. Alex, James Hatton. You can look at all of these names. They've all gone on to lead very exciting careers in the years since. But Liberty, I thought, was really great. Loved her comedy choices. She really made me laugh. She's got a great voice, as does new leading lady playing Veronica Sawyer, Gerardine Saktalan, who had recently led the UK tour of and Juliet. She is a sensational vocalist. There was, I thought, in her performance and in fairness, throughout the entire company, really a certain lack of nuance. And it's always been Heather's. It's never been Hamlet. However, we have have to, I think, correctly address the necessary storytelling beats for the thing to make sense. That's always been true about this show. And there was something that Carrie, Hope, Fletcher and many other Veronicas have gotten right at the very beginning. And it's this quality of fear, the initial desperation that Veronica has to survive a fraught and challenging, merciless high school environment. And she clings to the Heathers and tries to form this symbiotic relationship with them in order to. To survive this environment. Because, as she tells them, if she eats lunch at their table even once, people will think that they tolerate her and they will leave her alone. The problem that we run into is with Veronica's, who are so busy singing this opening number and projecting confidence to a very eager audience, and they forget that they need to be telegraphing some sense of fear. And I think it could be very tempting to play into the goofy, quirky, funny parts of Veronica's material, like when she gets to flirt with JD and sing Fight for Me about how hard it is to watch boys punch each other in the cafeteria. And it's funny and it's broad, but we're not getting any degree of nuance or subtlety. Therein lies the problem. And when you paint it in such broad strokes of red, yellow, green and blue, we come to realize by the second act, once we're actually talking about teenage suicide and trying to land a few genuine introspective emotional moments, that we can't quite go there because we didn't dig deep enough at the beginning. Meanwhile, Louis Hisi is a charming JD who is doing a great job already of solidifying himself as a fan favorite cast member. And I can tolerate a couple moments of smiling out to the audience, especially if they're gonna make his job as hard as they do with this many interruptions of giggling and shouting things out while he is pausing at necessary moments in his songs and his dialogue. But to do it as often as he did in this performance, which I will say on the even of the semi final World cup match was plagued by a fair amount of noise interruption through the thin, thin walls of this theater, which finds itself in the middle of a very busy central London roundabout. I will concede staying in character in the face of all of that undoubtedly challenging. However, the amount of what began to feel like fourth wall breaking was almost proximal to a running joke in the play that goes wrong when you have the one character from Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society who is constantly smiling out to the audience and remembering that they' and struggling to stay in the scene. That's almost where we were getting to. And Sophie Manners really surprised me as Martha Dunstock with some interesting choices and some powerful vocals when she was performing Kindergarten Boyfriend. I will say this song is an interesting moment because it's sort of the most emotionally exposing part of the second act. We're really going somewhere vulnerable. But these lyrics are still written to be comedic. However, you're now encountering this phenomenon with Heathers, and I spoke about this recently with Ride the Cyclone as well. Well, wherein many of the fans going to see the show will have already listened to the cast recording in its entirety. So a lot of the jokes, especially jokes that take place during songs or in lyrics, aren't getting laughs unless the performer manages to deliver them in an unexpected new way, which I thought she managed to find with like Anahorus with Wings. But there's things in Kindergarten Boyfriend that I don't think have really got a laugh for years. Even though it's a funny lyric, it's a deliberately slightly silly lyric at the beginning. Meanwhile, the stuff that actually does get a laugh is the sort of fan servicey moments like how is he gonna say Veronica Kazuya? And how is she gonna react facially when he starts singing? When mom was alive, we lived halfway normal. It's these little inside fan jokes. And if you're not of that community, if you're going to see this for the first time and you don't know the show, it sort of feels like the laughs are coming in all of the wrong moments and you don't get why that's supposed to be so funny. And also why nobody laughed at this thing here. It begins to make it feel just a little bit impenetrable. And if I'm perceiving that as somebody who does get all of these references and who has seen it seven times, then I worry about the people who've never seen it before. Final cast member shout out goes to Lou Henry, who I thought was a more interesting Heather McNamara than most because they cast a lot of like Elwood's junior types in this role, which balances the Heathers well enough. But her material in the second act, it really goes to some dark places. And this again, again exposing invulnerable yet comic monologue when she admits, sometimes I just start crying when I realize I'm on the freaking bus again because all my rides to school are dead. Spoiler alert for the events of the show and the Heathers McNamara and Duke, I think, also have custody of the most meaningful character arcs in the show. Veronica certainly learns from her experiences, and I don't know that there's that much for young people to take away from this tortured emo relationship that she forges with JD however, if you pay attention to the friendship and later frustration between Heather duke and Heather McNamara and the ultimate reconciliation, I think that does have a lot to teach young people, which is also something I found myself thinking about last week. And this is not a new thing that ought to have occurred to me because I was seeing this show for years as a teacher working with 16 to 18 year olds, but I began to think, you know, when we sort of start to drop the croquet balls somewhat in the heavier parts of the show and it all starts to feel a little more campy and that seesaw I told you about becomes slightly imbalanced, then I don't know if we're delivering the right moral lessons anymore. I don't know if young people are walking away from this with the right understanding. Before I move on to the other issues that I had with the show I was appreciative of the fact that, and I think this was an Off Broadway thing. They have now figured out a way to change Heather Duke's socks from green to red during the onstage quick change. That matters to me, apparently carrying on though. And this hopefully will be less of a factor as performances continue. It's been a long time since I've seen a professional theatrical production and this was after press night because I was going a little later in that week in which so many actors and admittedly football noise all these things, but so many performers seem to be struggling on cues. There were swapped around lyrics and there were sort of gulfs of time while we waited for people to figure out what their lines were meant to be. There were also a whole bunch of technical issues with microphones with follow spots not being in the right place. And it was hard not to begin to feel like the shine had sort of come off of Heather's somewhat. Meanwhile, there was this slightly alienating moment in the current call. And like I said, I've seen this show many times over several years, enough times to know that at the end, the cast members, as they're singing this little reprise of We'll Make It Beautiful, that they all go beautiful, beautiful. And the audience join in for a time they would throw scrunchies on stage. I think they're doing their best to try and curtail that behavior, even though they're very clear, clearly signposting and directing people to the stage door afterwards, which is a choice entirely of its own. But they, and again, I think this was an Off Broadway change, have cut the beautiful punch choreography in the air and instead they're doing an elaborate curtain call dance, which presumably is intended to, just like the recent UK tour of Legally Blonde, go viral enough on TikTok that people will learn it and do it at the show, but just generally share it and just kind of boost Heathers across social media. In the years since six the Musical, this is something that a lot of shows have been trying to chase. And it's not a worse curtain call necessarily. I think I'm just always going to prefer choreography that people can learn in the moment and have started joining in with by the end because they can figure it out, rather than something that feels like homework you were meant to prepare beforehand and that certain fans are going to performatively do around you and in front of you. And I don't want to make it sound like my problem with Heathers is the fan culture of Heathers, because there are plenty of other long running shows who also have perhaps slightly obnoxious fandoms. And they aren't all shows aimed towards young people. Some of them are very celebrated, very yellow, Olivier Award winning musicals. But as I watched this show rendered campier and goofier and shallower than I'd ever seen it before, with additional silent jokes put in to slow the pace of important scenes so that characters could make crude sexual hand references, I started to wonder how this was a show that I could ever have characterized as smart or layered or sophisticated, rather than simply a starter musical for teenagers, which they of course have every right to still enjoy. However, it can be better than this. It was better than this not long ago, and it feels important to acknowledge as well that the ongoing success of Heathers in the UK hasn't been without its consequences. So I want to talk about the impact impact of Heather's the Musical on the UK theatre industry because I think this show has swelled to such a size with adolescent musical theatre fans in the UK and has come to take up so much space that it's made it a little challenging for other shows alongside it in the sub genre to even exist. We saw something interesting happen when the return engagement at the other Palace Theatre ended, and for years fans had been awaiting the West End transfer of Mean Girls. Almost as soon as Heathers seemed to end what felt like it would be its last London run for a while, Mean Girls announced that it was coming to the Savoy Theatre, and around the same time Clueless announced that it was coming to the Trafalgar Theatre. Fangirls announced that it was going to be transferring from Australia to the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, and while none of those shows were turned around instantaneously, it did feel as though they had been waiting for the decline of Heathers in the UK so that they could have slightly more of a hope of attaining some kind of an audience. There remains an enduring question about whether Clueless and Mean Girls may have cannibalized each other's box office somewhat, with neither of them running necessarily as long as they wanted to in the West End. Heather's also surprisingly returned to at Soho Place very soon after it had finished at the other Palace. Around that time it had gained something of a challenging reputation because the other Palace Theater prior to this had been branded as a home for new musicals generating new musicals. It also happens to be one of the smaller spaces in the West End that can nurture a smaller developing show that doesn't have the capacity to sell out a huge venue, which Heathers it seemed like maybe did. Or if Heathers was just like getting by at the Other palace, then did it have any right to still exist at all? It was also a challengingly large show to produce at the Other palace because even though it's a great venue to go and see theatre in as an audience member, remember it's not the easiest venue to perform in as an actor of a large company because the dressing room space backstage is hugely limited. And while they were in the West End. I don't know if this is true at the Arts at Marble Arch. This is very speculative and this is hearsay that I have not had confirmed. However, it was rumored that every cast member at Heathers was being paid the same rate, regardless of the hierarchy of principal roles in the show. And because swings and understudies studies, I should say understudies, because the show famously, for a long time, didn't have offstage swing performers. They would get a bonus whenever they would go on for a role that they were understudying. Technically, they would become, I guess, the highest paid performer in the building. On that night, there was an additional rumor that the amount of pay that understudies would get for taking on one of these roles or returning to the show after leaving it to come back and save it by performing one of these roles, which happened on more than one occasion. There was a rumor that that that fee got sizably cut. But I haven't sat here to talk about all of the rumors that have been aimed towards Heathers in its UK history. I do want to talk about the fact that Mean Girls is touring right now and seems to be struggling to command an audience, which is surprising to me. If you look at the relative films that they are based on, you would assume that Mean Girls has a lot more name recognition than Heather's. Recently I spoke about a fatigue the audience members had have around musicals based on films, and I attributed a lot of this to this kind of attacky factor. And I said Hairspray, even though it was originally based on a movie, had become so well known as a musical, it had kind of transcended the reputation of the original movie. I wonder if certainly here in the uk, Heathers has done the same thing and whether Heathers is now more known for a lot of people as a musical than the film that it was based on. Mean Girls certainly hasn't eclipsed the movie, and so maybe by comparison, person feels that little bit less prestigious. Meanwhile, the Instagram account for Clueless the Musical still tells you that it is totally on tour in 2026, even though it evidently is totally not. And you know, I think when anything gets this big and particularly this popular with young fans, it is always going to have great things that it is responsible for and stuff that it has to answer for. One of the great things that Heathers is responsible for is for casting so many graduating performers and developing them and sort of generating a huge number of talents who have gone out into the industry. Like I said, that original cast are all brilliant musical theater stars now. Heathers has found so many of those talents at an early stage. What it is responsible for meanwhile, is popularizing a lot of complicated material steeped in irony and a certain amount of darkness with young audiences who don't necessarily grasp all of that, such that you have singing teachers now trying to persuade 10 year olds why they might perhaps choose to something other than Dead Girl Walking. And in terms of the life that the show is going to go on to have, there is a pro shot that exists that was filmed at the other palace a few runs a few casts ago. There has also been a cast recording since the Off Broadway run, there was an original West End cast recording. Heather's has firmly earned its place in the lasting musical theater canon. This production is going to tour many UK venues from late August 2026 through 2027. Heather's, after it finishes in New York, I believe, is going to be touring around. Like I said, the Australian production has just started. I am curious about, you know, Heather's being able to run in many different places, but how long it can ever run in one place. And I'm always fascinated, especially with ticket prices on the rise, by whether or not a young audience can solely sustain the run of a show because it's a great thing to enthrall the next generation of theater goers and to develop a young, young eager audience. They're going to really show up for you at West End Live. They're going to really show up for you on social media and in comments sections. However, to what extent can they really show up for you at the box office? If theater tickets are becoming more and more expensive, can all those young fans actually afford to go and see the show at all? And these were just some of the things that were playing on my mind as I was seeing the show again last week. And if the show is entertaining enough, then little of that ought to matter. However, if the show is engaging enough, then I wouldn't have found myself with enough time to consider all of these things. Simply put, the next time Heather's inevitably finds itself back in the West End at another different theater. You know at some point it's going to play the Palladium. If it's catching them all like Pokemon, There is every possibility that while I am thrilled for the fans who will have big fun going to see it in their plaid skirts and croquet mallets, I may just stay at home. For now. And until that happens, those have been my thoughts about the latest West End return of Heather's the Musical. If you have seen this show previously in any capacity, let me know what you think of it in the comments section down below. And whether, like me, your feelings have evolved over the last few years. You are also welcome if you would like to fight me in the comments section and wildly disagree with everything I've said. In the meantime, if you'd like to hear my thoughts on other shows and other topics, you can find so many of them here, wherever you're seeing my face or hearing me voice. Or you can subscribe for many more coming very soon. For now though, I have been Mickey Joe and I hope as always, that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.