Beetlejuice The Musical Reviews: What the Critics Say

Beetlejuice The Musical opened at the Prince Edward Theatre on 20 May 2026, and the press saw it on 28 May. The notices came back closer together than notices usually do, and where they landed was good rather than great.

Agreement like that is easier to plan a night around than a split would be. Here is what they said.

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The Critics' Verdict

Three stars from the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph, the Independent and WhatsOnStage. The Stage went one lower, at two. Nobody went to four.

A whole national press corps landing inside a single star is unusual. There is no rave to weigh against a savaging, and no lone dissenter to argue with, so the reviews work as a description of the evening rather than as an argument you have to settle yourself.

They also reach the same three conclusions in much the same order. The cast is excellent, the design is a spectacle, and the score does not stay with you.

Every quote on the posters outside the theatre is real, and every one of them is the warmest sentence in a notice that goes on to say something steadier.

What the Reviews Praised

Hannah Nordberg, in every notice including the one that liked least of everything around her. She plays Lydia Deetz, it is her West End debut, and she was cast through a social media open call. The Guardian said she "brings drop-dead energy to furrowed adolescent Lydia Deetz" and excels in her solos. The Independent called her "beautifully voiced" and credited her with carrying the emotional line of the piece. WhatsOnStage picked out Dead Mom, Lydia's number, as "a note perfect rendition". The two-star review had her belting the same song "with aplomb".

The look of the thing. The Guardian's list runs to "drop-dead gorgeous designs", uncanny lighting and trippy projections, and it said the effects, the illusions and the puppets "all leave you wanting more". The Telegraph found "a beautiful sense of hallucinogenic spectacle, complete with a fittingly ridiculous giant sandworm". The sandworm, and the roast pig that sits bolt upright at the dinner table, are what people come out talking about.

The London jokes. This staging has been rewritten with material a British audience gets and a Broadway one would not: the NHS, James Corden, Andrew Lloyd Webber's decapitated head, and a running feud with Paddington Bear. The Guardian counted "two foul-mouthed tirades against the West End's adored new arrival". WhatsOnStage reported that the Paddington gags "drew huge laughs, and quite a few gasps". The Independent went furthest, writing that when Beetlejuice swears at Paddington "it feels like the full weight of the British establishment is ready to bazooka the theatre".

Time Out dissented, and the objection is worth having. Andrzej Lukowski found the Paddington material "a series of coarse jokes" and asked "what the hell was that about?" The London rewrite is the most divisive thing in the show as well as the most distinctive, and which of those you think it is will probably decide how you feel about the evening.

And one song. WhatsOnStage made the case for Say My Name, which already has an audience who know every word of it.

One thing to know about all of the above: it describes the company that opened in May. Hannah Nordberg and David Fynn are still in it. Delia has changed hands and changes back, with Summer Strallen in the part until 31 October and Aimie Atkinson, the Delia these reviews describe, returning from 2 November.

Where Reviews Were Mixed

The score, where the agreement is at its most complete. The Guardian found the numbers "entertaining but oddly unmemorable" and signed off with "enjoy the sandworm, just don't expect earworms". The Telegraph heard "generic rock and Broadway pastiche largely going in one ear and out the other". The Independent called the songs "fun without being distinctive" and wanted "a bit more 1980s gothic texture to sell the darkness of this world". WhatsOnStage put it as a cut: "the show could lose a ballad or reprise and only gain as a result". Say My Name is the exception each time.

Then the curtain, which came back at them one after another. WhatsOnStage: "All too often, performers have to end their numbers in front of a curtain while a set change takes place behind cover in order to keep the pace up. It's distracting, pulling the character out of their environment and disrupting the scene." The Independent called the set "quirky but flimsy, prone to minor malfunctions and relying on a big curtain to hide transitions from view". The Stage got it into a phrase: scenes "played, bargain-basement style, in front of a cloth".

WhatsOnStage also named the cause. David Korins' set has had "something of a downgrade from its first two Broadway stints" and is "flimsier and cartoonishly threadbare" beside the version New York saw. So the curtain is a symptom of a cheaper build rather than a choice about pace, and it is something you will notice on the night without anyone pointing it out.

The design itself split one way only. The Stage thought it "looks cheap and feels flat" and that the puppetry "would be substantially put to shame by most big-budget pantos". That was also the only two-star review, so the low mark and the design complaint come from the same critic rather than from a camp.

David Fynn's Beetlejuice drew warmth rather than alarm. WhatsOnStage said he "has the numbers down pat" and has "fabulous chemistry", but is "perhaps missing some of the malice and dark comedic verve that could add real jeopardy", so "the show is constantly an amusing ride, but never really flashes its teeth". The Guardian saw "an appealing puppyishness beneath his bio-exorcist" and tired of the scattershot dialogue. The Independent enjoyed him as "a kind of perverted punk-rock frontman, with a green quiff that's as sickening as his sense of humour". The character is more mischief than menace, and how much that matters is a matter of what you came for.

Is Beetlejuice The Musical Right for You?

The Telegraph's reviewer gave it three stars and then wrote this: "If much of it left me cold… I also felt like the spectre at the feast: the audience around me audibly loved it." That gap between what the critic felt and what the audience around him felt is the thing to weigh.

Book it for the spectacle. The sandworm, the puppets, the projections and the illusions are what nearly every review praised, and they are what the ticket buys.

Book it if you know the 1988 film and want it staged bigger and ruder. Michael Keaton was on screen for 17 minutes. Here Beetlejuice hosts the evening from the opening number and talks to the audience all the way through it.

Book it if you like a show that plays to a crowd. The gags land, the laughs are loud, and the reviewers who enjoyed it least still reported everyone around them having a good time.

Think twice if you go to musicals for the songs. That is the one thing the critics all said, and no amount of sandworm fixes it.

Think twice about bringing children. The guidance is 12+ with adult supervision, and the reviews are the reason. The Times found a script "peppered with the occasional f-word", the Guardian has Beetlejuice coke-snorting, and the humour runs a good deal filthier than the film ever did.

If you are on the fence, call us on 020 7193 9050 and we will talk it through.

Book Beetlejuice The Musical Tickets

Tickets from around £27.50, with most seats around £50 to around £100 and premium seats from around £120. All-in pricing, so the price you see is what you pay.

It closes on 2 January 2027, earlier than the April date first announced, so the dates are finite.

The schedule, the cast, the prices and where to sit are all on our Beetlejuice The Musical tickets page, and the building itself is covered in our Prince Edward Theatre guide.

Find tickets • Call us on 020 7193 9050

Sources

The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Stage, WhatsOnStage.