Martin Guerre at a glance

Show
Martin Guerre
Venue
The Old Vic, Waterloo
Address
103 The Cut, London SE1 8NB
Nearest station
Waterloo (5 min walk)
Genre
Musical — semi-staged preview production
Staging
In the round (approx. 900 seats in this configuration)
Running time
Not yet announced by the producers
Age guidance
12+
Dates
1 – 31 October 2026 (five weeks only)
Press night
Tuesday 20 October 2026
Price range
From £28.50 (typically £28.50–£92)
Music
Claude-Michel Schönberg
Book & lyrics
Alain Boublil, with new lyrics by Annabel Mutale Reed and Paul Hodge
Director
Matthew Warchus

Before you book: this is a semi-staged preview

The Old Vic bills this as a preview production of semi-staged performances, offering an exclusive first look at the new Martin Guerre. That is not marketing softening — it is a real description of what you will see. Expect a presentation built around the score, the storytelling and the performances rather than full scenic staging. If that is what you want, this is an unusually interesting ticket. If you are expecting a finished, fully designed West End musical, book something else.

Expert Review: Martin Guerre at The Old Vic

4.4
★★★★★

LTH Editorial Anticipation Rating

Assessed by the London Theatre Hub editorial team. Published 25 August 2026. This is an anticipation rating based on the announced production, cast and creative team. Press night is 20 October 2026 — critic reviews are pending, and we will update this page once they are published.

The Verdict

Martin Guerre is the great unresolved problem of British musical theatre. Boublil and Schönberg wrote Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, two of the most successful musicals ever staged, and then wrote this — a show that won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1997 and never found the audience its predecessors did. They have rewritten it repeatedly across thirty years, which tells you something: the people who made Les Misérables have spent three decades convinced there is a great show in here somewhere, and have refused to let it go.

This is the most substantial attempt yet to find it. New music, new lyrics, and a set of folk-inflected orchestrations from Tom Curran that pull the score away from the sweeping quasi-operatic sound the original was built on — for a story about peasants in a 16th-century French village, that instinct seems right. Matthew Warchus has developed it as well as directing it, in the round, as the penultimate production of his tenure running the Old Vic. The reason our rating sits a little below the season's other new openings is not doubt about the material. It is that the Old Vic is being straightforward about this being a first look at a work still in progress, and we think a page like this one should be equally straightforward back.

What Makes It Special

  • Genuinely new work from Boublil and Schönberg. New songs and new lyrics from the writers of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon do not come along often. For anyone who follows musical theatre seriously, that alone is the event.
  • A score reconceived. Tom Curran's folk-inflected orchestrations represent a real change of direction rather than a tidy-up — moving a famously grand score towards something rougher and closer to the world of the story.
  • Warchus in the round, near the end of his tenure. The Old Vic's outgoing artistic director developed this piece himself, and it is his penultimate show at the theatre. His in-the-round configuration puts the front rows level with the performers.
  • A story built for a musical. A real 16th-century case about a man who may or may not be who he says he is, a wife who may or may not know, and a village that has to decide what the truth is worth. It also inspired the 1982 film The Return of Martin Guerre.
  • Prices well below the West End average. From £28.50, with group rates on top, for new work by two of the most significant writers in the form.

You'll love Martin Guerre if you...

  • Love Les Misérables or Miss Saigon and want to hear where those writers are now
  • Are curious about how a musical gets rebuilt, and enjoy seeing work in progress
  • Prefer score and storytelling to spectacle
  • Like in-the-round staging and sitting close to performers
  • Follow the Old Vic and want to catch Warchus's penultimate production

It might not be for you if you...

  • Want a fully staged, fully designed West End musical — this is semi-staged by design
  • Are booking a one-off London theatre trip and want a guaranteed crowd-pleaser
  • Dislike sung-through musicals with little spoken dialogue
  • Need to know the running time before you commit; it has not been announced
  • Only book shows with published critic reviews; press night is 20 October

Best for

  • Musical theatre devotees
  • Les Misérables fans
  • New work
  • In-the-round staging
  • Groups 10+
  • Value bookings

Not recommended for under-12s, or for visitors wanting a single guaranteed spectacle on a short London trip.

Critical Reception

No critic reviews of this production have been published yet. Performances begin on 1 October 2026 and press night is Tuesday 20 October 2026 — unusually late in a five-week run, which is consistent with a production still being developed. UK critics do not review before press night, so the first star ratings will appear from 20 October onwards.

The original 1996 Prince Edward Theatre production drew a famously mixed critical response while still winning the 1997 Olivier Award for Best New Musical — an unusual combination, and part of why the show has been reworked so many times since. Reviews of that production are thirty years old and describe a substantially different piece of work, so we are not going to present them as guidance to this one.

We do not publish star ratings we have not independently verified. The 4.4 above is our own editorial assessment based on the writers, the director, the reconceived score and the explicitly semi-staged format. We will replace this section with verified critic ratings once the production has opened.

Status as of 25 August 2026. This page will be updated after press night on 20 October 2026.

Everything You Need to Know

What happens in Martin Guerre?

The story is true, which is part of why it has outlasted almost every other 16th-century court case. In the village of Artigat in southern France, a young man named Martin Guerre is married to Bertrande in an arrangement neither of them asked for. The marriage fails to produce a child, the village turns on them both, and Martin leaves — for war, and for anywhere that is not there.

The man who comes back

Years pass. Bertrande exists in the worst position her society offers: not a wife, not a widow, unable to remarry. Then a man walks into the village and says he is Martin Guerre. He knows things Martin knew. He is welcomed. And he is, by every account, a better man than the one who left — attentive, warm, and in love with his wife in a way the original never managed.

What Bertrande knows

This is the question the whole piece turns on, and the reason the story has been retold for four centuries. Bertrande has every reason to suspect this man is not her husband. She accepts him anyway. Whether that makes her a victim of deception or a willing participant in it — and whether the distinction even matters when the alternative is the life she was living before — is left for the audience to weigh.

The trial

The deception cannot hold. Doubts harden, accusations are made, and the matter ends in a courtroom where the question is not really whether this man is Martin Guerre. It is whether the truth is worth more than the years of happiness built on the lie, and who gets to decide. The historical case ended badly. The musical follows it there.

Why two Martins

Alex James-Hatton and Shane O'Riordan are both credited in the role of Martin. For a story in which one name belongs to two men, that is a rather elegant piece of billing.