When did the­atre become so reliant on film?

As screen-to-stage adap­ta­tions go, tak­ing on Stan­ley Kubrick and one of the most acclaimed come­dies of all time is bold. But Dr Strangelove, which just opened at the Noël Cow­ard The­atre in London’s West End, sounds like a tempt­ing propo­si­tion rather than a sac­ri­le­gious one: adapt­ed by Arman­do Ian­nuc­ci, star­ring Steven Coogan, it’s a union between com­e­dy screen roy­al­ty of our own time.

In the 1964 Cold War satire, Peter Sell­ers proved vir­tu­oso in play­ing an Air Force cap­tain, the US pres­i­dent, and a sin­is­ter Ger­man sci­en­tist. Coogan not only goes one bet­ter – also play­ing Tex­an pilot Major Kong – but pulls it off live, bounc­ing in and out of war rooms and B‑52 cock­pits. He’s con­sis­tent­ly fun­ny, espe­cial­ly as a face-twist­ing, arm-pop­ping Dr Strangelove.

And yet. And yet…While there’s know­ing delight to this the­atri­cal feat, it also ham­pers the pace. This def­er­en­tial Dr Strangelove can feel an odd­ly lumpen and effort­ful show. Yes, Coogan acquits him­self well against the leg­end that is Sell­ers, but it begs the ques­tion: is that real­ly what we want in the­atre? A con­tin­u­al look­ing over actors’ shoul­ders for whether some­one did it bet­ter on screen, 60 years ago?

As a the­atre crit­ic, I’ve watched a tsuna­mi of film-to-stage adap­ta­tions. Right now in Lon­don, you can see Back to the Future, Mag­ic Mike, Mean Girls, Moulin Rouge, Mrs Doubt­fire, The Lion King, and the about-to-open The Dev­il Wears Pra­da musi­cal. Large-scale tour­ing is even more in-hoc: you could be vis­it­ed by Hair­spray, Aladdin, Heathers, Grease, Ghost, Kinky Boots, Mary Pop­pins, Mada­gas­car, Cru­el Intentions…at any moment there’s a film-to-stage adap­ta­tion quite lit­er­al­ly wait­ing in the wings.

This is not a new trend: Dis­ney twigged there were mega-bucks to be made in putting movies on stage thir­ty years ago. Their first attempt, Beau­ty and the Beast in 1994, received a crit­i­cal maul­ing – ​“padded, gim­mick-rid­den, tacky and, despite the mil­lions, utter­ly devoid of imag­i­na­tion”, accord­ing to Vari­ety. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, some of these are com­plaints I’d still throw at the less-inspired film adap­ta­tions today.

But then came The Lion King, which opened on Broad­way in 1997 and in the West End in 1999, direct­ed by Julie Tay­mor who proved you could absolute­ly fash­ion a dis­tinct­ly the­atri­cal ver­sion of a kids’ car­toon on stage. It’s sure­ly no coin­ci­dence that one of the most inven­tive screen-to-stage adap­ta­tions – mak­ing mag­i­cal use of masks and pup­petry – is also the most endur­ing and prof­itable, earn­ing over $10 bil­lion world­wide. (Avatar, the high­est-gross­ing film, made less than $3 billion.)

Yet a lot of pro­duc­ers seemed to learn one les­son – famous films make wild­ly prof­itable stage shows! – with­out giv­ing much thought to the oth­er les­son – famous films can make wild­ly imag­i­na­tive stage shows.

I have no quar­rel with adap­ta­tions where there’s an urgent desire to re-tell a sto­ry in a new medi­um or an excit­ing vision for how to do that. One of my favourite shows of recent years was My Neigh­bour Totoro – trans­fer­ring in March to the Gillian Lynne The­atre – which enchant­ed in how it played with scale, pup­petry, and live per­for­mance, giv­ing new form to Stu­dio Ghibli’s animations.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Jack Thorne beau­ti­ful­ly trans­lat­ed the icy, yearn­ing chill of Let the Right One for the stage. The bom­bast of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s 1991 musi­cal ver­sion of Sun­set Boule­vard matched the self-delud­ing grandeur of the film’s hero­ine – and recent­ly proved sharply urgent in Jamie Lloyd’s new stag­ing. Tim Minchin’s songs for Ground­hog Day added wit­ty and mov­ing new lay­ers, and putting the danc­ing at the heart of An Amer­i­can in Paris, 42^nd Street, Bil­ly Elliot or Strict­ly Ball­room in a the­atre feels both log­i­cal and delightful.

But too many shows fol­low the ​‘Pop­u­lar Movie: The Musi­cal’ for­mu­la with­out seem­ing­ly ques­tion­ing whether the sto­ry would actu­al­ly ben­e­fit from this treat­ment – adding songs, but not adding val­ue. I sus­pect pro­duc­ers are see­ing pound signs rather than real the­atri­cal vision. Take, for exam­ple, the rash of high school movies-turned-musi­cals: Heathers, Mean Girls, Cru­el Inten­tions, Clue­less and Bring It On. Per­fect snarky lit­tle con­fec­tions on screen, these sto­ries rarely ben­e­fit from hav­ing earnest or mawk­ish songs added.

Even more tricky is the cast­ing conun­drum. As with Dr Strangelove, stage ver­sions of Back to the Future, Pret­ty Woman, Sis­ter Act, Mrs Doubt­fire, or the about-to-open The Dev­il Wears Pra­da have anoth­er huge moun­tain to climb: their leg­endary cen­tral per­for­mances. It’s tough to recre­ate their unique flavour while miss­ing their main ingre­di­ent. How do you match the mem­o­ry of Robin Williams? Can Pret­ty Woman work with­out Julia Roberts? (On the basis of the recent musi­cal, I’d say: absolute­ly not). Faith­ful copies end up feel­ing like pale imi­ta­tions and cul­tur­al ouroboros: con­tent can­ni­bal­is­ing itself, espe­cial­ly when hit musi­cals in turn then prompt new movie ver­sions (see Mean Girls, Hairspray).

The abun­dance of adap­ta­tions is large­ly down to them being seen as ​‘safe bets’ – under­stand­ably appeal­ing in the cur­rent tough finan­cial cli­mate for the­atres. In the same way that remakes, fran­chis­es and IP-led movies have dom­i­nat­ed cin­e­ma recent­ly, stage ver­sions of well-loved titles are seen as bank­able. But the churn pre­sum­ably also reflects what audi­ences have proven will­ing to stump up for. There’s clear­ly a sig­nif­i­cant nos­tal­gia pound, spent right across cul­ture: when mon­ey is tight, peo­ple are more will­ing to shell out for some­thing they already know they like. Nos­tal­gia is cosy; adap­ta­tions promise com­fort­ing familiarity.

But cre­ative­ly, I’d argue it’s bad news for the­atre. Screen-to-stage adap­ta­tions have a flat­ten­ing effect: they are by their very nature pre­dictable, to the point of often feel­ing lazy and cyn­i­cal at their core (even if I still applaud the huge amounts of work that goes into per­for­mances, songs, design, and so on). Dr Strangelove hasn’t con­vinced me oth­er­wise: it’s fun, it’s fun­ny, but it’s def­er­en­tial to a fault. Despite Coogan, it can’t silence the whis­per that says you could just watch the movie.

Still, it’s at least an unex­pect­ed adap­ta­tion – I gen­uine­ly didn’t see this one com­ing. And I won­der if it hints that we might be near­ing the end of this wave of adap­ta­tions, or at least a slow­ing of the tide? Could we be run­ning out of obvi­ous, bank­able titles to adapt?

Look­ing ahead, there are few­er adap­ta­tions on the hori­zon for 2025. There are actu­al­ly some plays head­ed to the West End! Grant­ed, a pro­duc­tion of Clue­less arrives in Feb­ru­ary, and Dis­ney is doing Her­cules, while a musi­cal of 13 Going on 30 has just been announced – but sure­ly that’s the sound of the nos­tal­gia bar­rel being scraped, rather than a sign of its rude health. Per­son­al­ly, I’d be hap­py if the­atre did begin to tire of sim­ply aping the hits of the sil­ver screen. After all, we don’t want any­one to attempt 2001: The Musical.