Clueless: The Musical at a glance

Show
Clueless: The Musical
Venue
Trafalgar Theatre, 14 Whitehall, London SW1A 2DY
West End opening
15 February 2025 (previews); press night February 2025
West End closing
23 August 2025
Genre
Musical comedy / jukebox-original hybrid
Running time
Approximately 2 hours 20 minutes, including interval
Age guidance
12+
Book
Amy Heckerling (writer-director of the 1995 film)
Music
KT Tunstall
Lyrics
Glenn Slater
Director
Rachel Kavanaugh
Choreographer
Kelly Devine
Lead cast
Emma Flynn (Cher Horowitz), Keelan McAuley (Josh)
Based on
The 1995 Paramount Pictures film Clueless (and Jane Austen's Emma)
Upcoming UK tour
Opens Churchill Theatre Bromley, September 2026

Retrospective Review: Clueless: The Musical at the Trafalgar Theatre

4.0
★★★★☆

LTH Expert Rating

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

The Verdict (looking back)

Clueless: The Musical knew exactly what it was. The 1995 film has a thirty-year fanbase that arrives wanting Cher's wardrobe, the Beverly Hills voice, the makeover montage and the central romantic beats — and the show delivered on all of them. Amy Heckerling wrote the book herself, which kept the dialogue's distinctive rhythm intact, and the production around it was bright, confident and aimed squarely at audiences who came for the source material.

KT Tunstall's score was the bigger gamble, and it largely paid off. Rather than reaching for pastiche 90s pop, Tunstall wrote a contemporary pop-rock catalogue that found character moments for Cher, Tai and the supporting roles, with Glenn Slater's lyrics shouldering the comedic and emotional work. Reviews were largely positive without being ecstatic — most critics agreed the show was a solid, well-crafted crowd-pleaser rather than a transformative musical. The Trafalgar Theatre's 630-seat capacity proved a good fit for the show's tone, and the production ran for around six months before announcing its closure in summer 2025, ahead of a UK tour opening in September 2026.

What it did well

  • Heckerling's own book. Having the original film's writer-director adapt her own work for the stage gave the show a fluency with the source material that screen-to-stage adaptations often lack. Cher's voice, the Beverly Hills geography and the central comic logic of the story all translated cleanly.
  • KT Tunstall's score. The Brit Award-winning singer-songwriter, best known for Suddenly I See and Black Horse and the Cherry Tree, made her musical theatre debut with this commission. Her pop-rock sensibility gave the show a contemporary voice rather than leaning on 90s nostalgia, and the score earned positive notices in its own right.
  • Glenn Slater's lyrics. Slater, a three-time Tony nominee with Sister Act, School of Rock and Tangled to his name, provided the structural musical-theatre craft to support Tunstall's melodic instincts. The pairing was a smart commission.
  • Rachel Kavanaugh's staging. The director's track record at Chichester Festival Theatre and Regent's Park Open Air Theatre is in tightly-paced commercial musicals. Clueless was no exception — the production was brisk, bright, and never overstayed its welcome.
  • Kelly Devine's choreography. The Olivier Award winner (Come From Away) supplied the show's most distinctive set-pieces. The makeover and high-school numbers gave the production its trademark visual moments.

Perfect for

Audiences who grew up with the film and wanted to see its world reimagined on stage; fans of contemporary pop-musicals in the Mean Girls / Heathers tradition; theatregoers looking for a light, comic night out rather than a heavier musical-drama; and ticket buyers who'd enjoyed Heckerling's original screenplay and wanted to hear Cher's voice again.

Critical Reception (2025 West End run)

Clueless: The Musical opened to largely positive reviews from London's theatre critics. Most agreed that Heckerling's book, Tunstall's score and Slater's lyrics worked well together, and that the production was a well-crafted commercial musical aimed cleanly at its target audience. The general critical consensus settled around three and four stars — solid rather than spectacular.

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

Source: published reviews of the Trafalgar Theatre run (February–August 2025). Ratings indicative of consensus; some publications were marginally higher or lower.

About the Production

What happens in Clueless: The Musical

The musical follows Cher Horowitz, the popular and well-meaning queen bee of Beverly Hills High School, who lives a designer-clad life with her father, a successful lawyer, and her stepbrother Josh, who is back from college and forever rolling his eyes at her priorities. Cher is, in her own view, basically perfect — and her current project is to apply her matchmaking instincts to others.

Act I — The makeover

After playing successful matchmaker for two of her teachers, Cher takes on her biggest challenge: making over Tai, the new transfer student, into someone the most desirable boy at school will notice. The makeover succeeds beyond Cher's expectations — possibly too well — while Cher's own ideas about romance and her not-quite-as-clueless stepbrother Josh start to complicate her plans. The act builds to a fashion-forward party sequence and a series of romantic misalignments straight out of Jane Austen.

Act II — The reckoning

Act II turns on Cher's slow realisation that she's not actually in charge of anyone's love life, including her own. The romantic geometry rearranges itself in genuinely surprising ways for audiences only loosely familiar with the film, and Cher learns the lesson the title sets up: she's been clueless about the people closest to her. The show ends with a series of romantic resolutions and a final number sized for a curtain call.

The score

KT Tunstall's original songs ranged from up-tempo pop-rock numbers — the show's title song, the high-school anthem "New Girl," and the comic "Human Barbies" — to character ballads for Cher and Tai. The score is contemporary pop-musical-theatre rather than a 90s-pastiche jukebox: original songs throughout, not film soundtrack covers. The cast band performed the show live.