On tour
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Still Very: how a cult-film musical became British theatre's most-revived teen tragedy
Kevin Murphy and Laurence O'Keefe's adaptation of the 1989 film has outlived every one of its limited runs. In 2026 it opened a new London venue, launched a fifteen-month UK and Ireland tour, and kept a New York revival running at the same time.
A cult film nobody wanted to adapt
Daniel Waters wrote the screenplay for Heathers in the late 1980s and Michael Lehmann directed it; the film, released in 1989, made very little money and acquired its following on video. The idea of setting it to music came from composer-lyricists Laurence O'Keefe and Kevin Murphy, who wrote the book together and spent years in development before anything reached a paying audience. Three private readings were held in Los Angeles in 2009, with Kristen Bell reading Veronica Sawyer.
The first public airing was a concert staging at Joe's Pub in New York on 13 and 14 September 2010, directed by Andy Fickman, with Jeremy Jordan as J.D. and Annaleigh Ashford as Veronica. Fickman has directed the piece ever since, which is unusual for a show with this many separate productions. A full staging followed at the Hudson Backstage Theatre in Los Angeles from 21 September to 6 October 2013, and that West Coast run was the version that convinced producers to move it east.
Off-Broadway, and then London would not let it go
Heathers opened off-Broadway at New World Stages in 2014, with previews from 15 March, an opening on 31 March and a closing on 4 August. It was not a hit in the conventional sense — it ran under five months — but the cast album, recorded on 15 and 16 April 2014 and released that June, did the work the box office had not. The score circulated among teenagers who had never seen the film, let alone the show, and the demand that grew out of it was the reason a British production happened at all.
The London premiere came at The Other Palace from 9 June to 4 August 2018, with Carrie Hope Fletcher as Veronica. It transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket from 3 September to 24 November 2018, and at the WhatsOnStage Awards in 2019 it took Best New Musical, with Fletcher winning Best Actress in a Musical. A revival returned to the Haymarket from 21 June to 11 September 2021, and the show was back at The Other Palace in 2023, running until 3 September. By the time the 2026 production was announced it had played three West End runs and three UK and Ireland tours.
The score, and the one song that was replaced
Structurally the show is tight and front-loaded with hooks. The first act runs from Beautiful through Candy Store, Fight for Me, Freeze Your Brain, Big Fun, Dead Girl Walking, The Me Inside of Me, You're Welcome, Never Shut Up Again and Our Love Is God. The second opens with My Dead Gay Son and moves through Seventeen, Shine a Light, Lifeboat, a Shine a Light reprise, I Say No, Kindergarten Boyfriend, Yo Girl, Meant to Be Yours, a Dead Girl Walking reprise, I Am Damaged and a Seventeen reprise.
One change matters to how the show plays now. The number Blue, present in the 2014 off-Broadway version, was replaced by You're Welcome, on the grounds that the original made light of date rape. That substitution is part of a broader softening the musical has been criticised for: it keeps the film's plot and most of its jokes while pulling back from the cynicism that made the film hard to place in 1989.
Two productions running at once, 2025 into 2026
Eleven years after the first New York run, a revival returned to the same building. It began performances at New World Stages in June 2025 and opened on 10 July 2025, with Kuhoo Verma as Veronica, Casey Likes as J.D., Peyton List as Heather Chandler, Jackera Davis as Heather Duke, Elizabeth Teeter as Heather McNamara and Kate Rockwell doubling Ms Fleming and Veronica's mother. Fickman directed again. It has been extended three times, most recently through 6 September 2026, and marked its first anniversary with a sing-along performance on 22 June.
In London, the show became the first production to open The Arts at Marble Arch, a 594-seat house, playing 52 performances from 9 July to 22 August 2026. Gerardine Sacdalan played Veronica, with Louis Hearsey as J.D., Liberty Stottor as Heather Chandler, Jessica Ibadin as Heather Duke and Lou Henry as Heather McNamara. Sophie Manners made her professional debut as Martha Dunnstock, and much of the company was making a professional debut alongside her. The production is credited to Bill Kenwright Ltd and Paul Taylor-Mills, with choreography by Gary Lloyd, set design by David Shields, lighting by Ben Cracknell, sound by Dan Samson and musical supervision by Jeremy Wootton and Will Joy.
Fifteen months on the road
The Marble Arch company did not disband at the end of August. The same cast and staging moved straight out on a UK and Ireland tour, opening at Theatre Royal Windsor from 26 to 29 August 2026 and reaching Darlington Hippodrome in late September. The autumn 2026 leg ran through Peterborough New Theatre (13–17 October), Sheffield Lyceum (20–24 October), Blackpool Grand (27–31 October), Cheltenham Everyman (3–7 November), Chichester Festival Theatre (10–14 November), the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre in Dublin (17–21 November) and Oxford New Theatre (24–28 November).
The tour resumes in February 2027 at Hull New Theatre and continues through Liverpool Empire, the Palace Theatre in Manchester, York's Grand Opera House, The Alexandra in Birmingham, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, the King's in Glasgow, His Majesty's in Aberdeen, Bradford Alhambra, Chelmsford Theatre and the Princess Theatre in Torquay, finishing at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge from 4 to 8 May 2027. Further venues have been flagged as still to be announced, so the run may well stretch past that date.
What the reviews have found
The London opening drew a split verdict, and the split was technical rather than artistic. Theatre Weekly, reviewing on 13 July 2026, called it camp, energetic and witty but logged followspots lagging behind their cues, dancers off their marks and sound design that blurred the band into the lyrics, with traffic noise from the surrounding roads reaching the auditorium. London Theatre, on 14 July, found the set underwhelming on the small stage, thought the chemistry between Sacdalan and Hearsey did not always convince, and judged that the musical glosses over the film's bite in favour of something shinier.
On tour the technical complaints have largely cleared. Theatre and Tonic gave the opening night at Darlington four stars on 23 September 2026, singling out a much-improved sound balance that let the wordplay land, and called it the strongest version of the show the reviewer had seen. A four-star notice from Sheffield's Lyceum on 23 October praised Shields's set for moving fluidly between the school, the houses and the bedrooms, though it still noted moments where the sound obscured lyrics, and raised a fair objection to how the audience-participation sections handle consent. Sacdalan's vocal range and Stottor's Heather Chandler have been the consistent points of agreement, with Manners's Martha the performance audiences reliably take to.
The show, now
The current UK and Ireland touring production runs two hours thirty minutes including one interval, with age guidance of 14 and over for content covering teenage suicide, bullying and school violence. There is no support act: it is a book musical in two acts, playing the fixed score from Beautiful through to the Seventeen reprise, with Candy Store, Dead Girl Walking, Big Fun and My Dead Gay Son as the numbers that get the loudest response. David Shields's single set carries the school and shifts to bedrooms and houses without scene-change pauses, lit by Ben Cracknell, with Gary Lloyd's choreography built for a company in which several performers are making their professional debut. Gerardine Sacdalan plays Veronica and Louis Hearsey J.D., with Liberty Stottor, Jessica Ibadin and Lou Henry as the three Heathers and Sophie Manners as Martha. Sound was the main complaint at the London opening in July 2026 and had noticeably improved by the Darlington opening in September, though Sheffield reviewers in October still lost occasional lyrics. Audiences skew young and heavily female; the pattern reviewers describe is close attention during numbers and loud applause the moment each one ends, rather than talking over the show. The tour is scheduled through 8 May 2027 at the Cambridge Arts Theatre, with more venues flagged as to be announced.
Researched from en.wikipedia.org · whatsonstage.com · heathersthemusical.com · kenwright.com · londontheatre.co.uk · theatreweekly.com · theatreandtonic.co.uk · therealchrisparkle.com