Heathers the Musical – Belgrade Theatre, Coventry

Book, Music and Lyrics: Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe

Director: Andy Fickman

Heathers the Musical arrives at the Belgrade with a reputation larger than the theatre needed to sell out on press night. Since its 2018 West End debut Heathers has built a genuinely devoted following, and this touring revival plays to it, delivering assured performances, excellent vocals and a set that shifts fluidly around a fixed Westerberg High School frontage without ever quite finding the extra gear that would lift it beyond simply doing the job well.

That devotion is obvious from the opening scene: when the three Heathers first strike their signature pose, the response is the kind reserved for a star entrance, not three fictional teenagers in matching skirts. It sets the tone for an evening in which the audience’s enthusiasm does a good deal of the emotional work

Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s musical, adapted from Daniel Waters’s 1988 film, sets its story of high-school bullying, peer pressure and the desperate hunger to belong against songs and choreography (Gary Lloyd) sharp enough to keep the comedy moving fast, offsetting some genuinely dark material along the way — bad language, violence, an attempted sexual assault among them. The moral reckoning ends up wrapped up tidily: those left standing find their way back to decency, while accountability for the worst of the cruelty is settled by the plot rather than confronted directly. It’s a resolution that arguably lets Veronica off rather more lightly than her own choices deserve — she questions herself at every stage without ever quite finding the resolve to stop, notwithstanding that most people would have walked away long before she does.

Gerardine Sacdalan is a likeable, credible Veronica, tracking that slow slide from reluctant participant to accomplice with care. Louis Hearsey gives a well-judged performance as J.D., charming enough as Veronica’s rescuer from the Heathers’ clutches that his later turn carries real drama.

The three Heathers — Liberty Stottor’s imperious Heather Chandler, Jessica Ibadin’s Heather Duke and Lou Henry’s Heather McNamara — bring strong voices and a shared sense that the cruelty might be persona rather than character, something none of them can quite escape once adopted. Markus Södergren and Beau Jackson, as football jocks Kurt Kelly and Ram Sweeney, use comedy skilfully to soften characters who are – underneath the laughs, not very likeable at all – and John Gurdián and Reuben Browne find similar mileage playing their respective fathers. Veronica Carabai does well in the dual role of Ms Fleming, the teacher too well-meaning to see what’s happening under her nose, and Veronica’s concerned mother, while Sophie Manners, in her professional stage debut, gives a sweet, sympathetic account of bullied outsider Martha Dunnstock.

David Shields’s set — a fixed school frontage with pieces moved around it by the cast — keeps the show flowing cleanly for the most part, though the occasional blackout, used to shift pieces the cast doesn’t carry on in character, stalls the pace more than it needs to. Folding those movements into the action itself, rather than pausing for them in the dark, would keep the evening’s energy more consistent.

None of this dents what is, ultimately, a well-drilled and enjoyable night. This isn’t a production reinventing Heathers so much as delivering it reliably and well, trusting the strength of the material and the loyalty of its audience to do the rest — and on that basis, it succeeds comfortably.

Runs until 19 September 2026 and on tour