The boat in Jaws, the flashy car in Back to the Future, and the kitchen in The Good Life: it seems we all want to recapture those moments – but in the theatre
There’s a lot of talk about Britain in the 1970s and 80s – and not much of it good: warnings of a “winter of discontent” to match that of 1978-79, talk of rampant inflation, predictions that the financial fallout from the pandemic may make the crash of the late 1980s look like a picnic. All these conjure grimness and greyness to match a past analogue age.
Strange, then, that a strong wave of nostalgia for these same eras is driving audiences back into the nation’s reopening theatres. Shows based on screen hits from the 70s and 80s are now top box office. The demand for such a comforting form of time travel became clear when the backers of the newly-opened musical version of Robert Zemecki’s Back to the Future extended its West End run to July 2022.
Continue reading…
