Back to the Future: The Musical at a glance

Show
Back to the Future: The Musical
West End venue
Adelphi Theatre, 409-412 Strand, London WC2R 0NS
World premiere
Manchester Opera House, February 2020 (London transfer: Adelphi Theatre, September 2021)
West End closing
12 April 2026 (after 1,913 performances over five years)
Total London audience
Over 2 million
Global audience to date
Over 4 million across all productions
Genre
Musical (film adaptation)
UK tour pricing
From £20 (typically £20–£150 depending on venue and performance)
UK tour run
8 October 2026 – November 2027 (multi-week residencies at major regional theatres)
Running time
Approximately 2 hours 40 minutes, including interval
Age guidance
6+ (under-4s not admitted; under-16s must be accompanied)
Book
Bob Gale (also co-writer of the 1985 film)
Music & lyrics
Alan Silvestri (1985 film composer) and Glen Ballard
Director
John Rando (Tony Award winner)
Set & costume design
Tim Hatley
Producer
Colin Ingram for InTheatre Productions
Awards
Olivier Award for Best New Musical (2022); WhatsOnStage Award for Best New Musical (2022); Broadway World UK Best New Musical

Retrospective Review: Back to the Future at the Adelphi Theatre

4.6
★★★★★

LTH Expert Rating

Reviewed retrospectively by the London Theatre Hub editorial team. Last updated: 12 May 2026.

The Verdict (looking back)

Back to the Future: The Musical did the unusual job of being a stage adaptation of a beloved 1980s blockbuster that fans of the original film actively championed rather than tolerated. Five years at the Adelphi, 1,913 performances, two million London audience members and a 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Musical — the numbers describe a production that worked harder and longer than most film-to-stage adaptations manage. The reasons it worked are simpler than they look.

The central decision was to keep the people who made the film involved in making the show. Bob Gale, who co-wrote the 1985 screenplay with director Robert Zemeckis, wrote the book — so the musical understands what made the original good and where the jokes actually land. Alan Silvestri, the film's composer, wrote the original score with Glen Ballard — so the new music sits naturally inside the world of the film rather than feeling tacked onto it. The result was a stage adaptation that earned its standing with fans and won over audiences who came in skeptical. John Rando's direction and Tim Hatley's design solved the seemingly impossible problem of putting a DeLorean on stage with imagination rather than gimmickry. The closure marked the end of one of the West End's most successful new musicals of the decade.

Why it worked

  • The original creative team. Bob Gale, the film's co-writer, wrote the book. Alan Silvestri, the film's composer, wrote the score with Grammy winner Glen Ballard. This is unusual for a film-to-stage adaptation, and it shows in the result — the show understands the source material in a way that licensed adaptations often don't.
  • Olivier Award for Best New Musical (2022). Six Olivier nominations in total, plus four WhatsOnStage Awards including Best New Musical, plus the Broadway World UK Award. The Olivier win in particular put the production firmly in the conversation alongside the West End's biggest new musicals of the decade.
  • The DeLorean. The central stage challenge — that a Back to the Future show without the DeLorean is not really a Back to the Future show — was solved with imagination by Tim Hatley's set design and Chris Fisher's illusion design. The car appears, drives, and ultimately "travels through time" in ways that earned standing ovations at every performance.
  • The classic songs. The Power of Love, Johnny B. Goode and Earth Angel from the original film are all in the show alongside the new Silvestri/Ballard score, properly integrated rather than just dropped in for fan service.
  • 1,913 performances. Five years at the Adelphi places it in the upper rank of recent new West End musicals. Over two million London audience members and four million worldwide across the show's London, Broadway, North American tour, Australian, Japanese and Royal Caribbean Cruises productions.

Critical Reception (2021–26 West End run)

The West End production drew strong reviews on opening in September 2021 and continued to attract positive notices throughout its five-year run. The Daily Mail called it "packs more energy than a nuclear reactor", Metro described it as "perfect musical escapism", and most major UK papers gave four or five stars. Indicative ratings from major UK publications:

  • Daily Mail ★★★★★
  • The Telegraph ★★★★
  • The Times ★★★★
  • The Guardian ★★★★
  • Metro ★★★★★
  • WhatsOnStage ★★★★★
  • Evening Standard ★★★★

Source: published reviews of the West End opening (September 2021) at the Adelphi Theatre and subsequent revisit notices.

About the Production

What happens in Back to the Future: The Musical

Back to the Future: The Musical is a stage adaptation of the 1985 Universal Pictures film, with a book by the film's co-writer Bob Gale, faithful to the original story while bringing it into a musical structure. The plot will be familiar to anyone who has seen the film — and the show makes a point of being equally enjoyable for those who haven't.

1985 — Hill Valley, California

Marty McFly is a high-school rock 'n' roll teenager living in 1985 Hill Valley, California. His father George is a meek under-achiever bullied by his old high-school nemesis Biff Tannen. His mother Lorraine is fragile and disappointed. His best friend is the eccentric local scientist Doc Brown. Marty's life is going nowhere — until Doc Brown unveils his latest invention: a DeLorean sports car converted into a time machine, powered (initially) by stolen plutonium.

1955 — same town, different time

An accident sends Marty back to 1955, where he accidentally prevents his teenage parents from meeting — which means he is in the process of being erased from existence. He has to find the 1955 version of Doc Brown, work out how to get back to 1985 using the resources of 1955, and somehow engineer his parents' first meeting. The mechanism for the last of these — Marty becomes his own mother's teenage crush — is the source of most of the show's comedy.

The big numbers

The musical builds to two showpiece sequences: the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, where Marty plays Johnny B. Goode on guitar to fix his parents' first meeting — and the famous storm sequence in which the DeLorean has to hit 88 miles per hour at the exact moment a lightning bolt strikes the clock tower. Both are staged on a scale that earned the show its Olivier Award for Best New Musical, and both are reasons fans of the film tend to leave the theatre cheering.

The Silvestri / Ballard score

The musical's original songs were written by Alan Silvestri (the original film's composer) and Glen Ballard (Grammy winner, co-writer of Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill). Three classic film songs — The Power of Love, Johnny B. Goode and Earth Angel — are retained and integrated into the new score. The combination of new theatrical writing and iconic film hits is a large part of what made the show land both with first-time audiences and fans of the original.