Thespians the Musical is a new comedy musical, set in Ancient Greece. It follows the story of Thespis and his friends, as they invent acting for the first time. Here’s my Thespians the Musical theatre review.
Overview and plot synopsis of Thespians the Musical
Thespians the Musical is a new comedy musical, by the same company that did the long-running West End Comedy called The Play That Goes Wrong. As well as other ‘goes wrong’ plays, this is the company’s first musical. My Thespians the Musical theatre review will first give an overview of the plot of Thespians the Musical, and then talk about what I liked and what I wasn’t so sure about.
Act One
Thespians the Musical follows the story of Thespis and his friends. Thespis lives with his sister Poly on the island of Ikaria in 534 BC during a period of severe drought. They pray to their Gods for rain. The tyrannical ruler, called Tyrant, then sets up a competition for the best prayer to the Gods for rain. The contest is designed to entertain the public, with losing participants facing execution and the winners receiving official favour.
Thespis and his friends attempt to improve their chances in the competition by presenting their prayers in a more structured and performative manner. Their approach leads them to introduce spoken character roles, scripted dialogue, and staged presentation, unintentionally creating the first form of acting. This development emerges as they assemble a small troupe including Poly as writer, Melampus as director, and Atlas and Adonis as additional performers.
The group travels to Athens and presents their new performance style before the Tyrant and the assembled audience. Their innovation distinguishes them from the other competitors and establishes Thespis as the originator of acting.
Act Two
In the second Act, Thespis and his friends are continuing to perform in Athens. They’ve achieved huge success, and Thespis is now a star, with merchandise of him available.
The Tyrant is envious of their success and fame, so comes up with a plan to tear the group apart. She persuades Thespis to sign a contract for a one-man show, so he leaves his friends. However, it’s a trap, and leads to Thespis being arrested.
The rest of the group forgive Thespis’s betrayal and come up with a plan to rescue him. By impersonating the Tyrant in a comedy-filled showdown, they manage to save Thespis, and also cause the Tyrant to become good and join them. The show ends with a happy ending, with the group reunited and Atlas bravely declaring his love for Thespis – which is requited.
What I liked about Thespians the Musical
I really enjoyed Thespians the Musical. It’s a light-hearted comedy, with plenty of clever puns and word play.
The characters and character development
I really liked all of the main characters in Thespians the Musical. It was easy to get to know them, and know the ‘type’ of person they were. And they all had good character development. Thespis was the classic hero, who gets a bit full of himself, but the ultimately learns his lesson and has some good character development as he goes back to his friends at the end. Atlas was one of my favourites – a sweet, gay character who gets overlooked and used as a piece of paper (literally), and whose pet goats keep being sacrificed for the Gods. But he finds his voice and bravery, ultimately declaring his love for Thespis as the end.
Adonis was funny – with his northern accent, and his attempts to be the ‘strong’ man – including the running joke of him stuffing apples into his pants to appear more well-endowed, resulting in apples frequently falling down onto the stage with the running joke of ‘it must be apple season’. Poly was a nice character as well, a book-focussed sweet girl who also finds her voice and bravery throughout the show. And Melampus was good as well – a mother figure for the group, with the sub-plot of looking for her long-lost soldier lover. And even the Tyrant had good character development, becoming good at the end.
The comedy – the lines
The comedy is clearly the highlight of the show. It’s light hearted comedy, but like the other performances from Mischief Comedy, there’s a lot of clever wordplay as well. Some of the comedic lines from the show have really stuck in my head – and some of them don’t even seem that funny when written down, but in the context of the show, and with the excellent delivery, the audience was properly laughing:
- ‘I don’t need advice from a pina colada’ (Thespis to Adonis, when he’s dressed in an elaborate version of Thespis’s costume with grapes and has added a pineapple on his head)
- ‘Olympus-puss’ (the name of a cat – I definitely want to have a cat and call it Olympus now)
- ‘Don’t do that…’ (literally the funniest moment of the show, from this really simple line. Towards the end, the play briefly turns into a Greek tragedy. Melampus has just been shot with the arrow when trying to rescue Thespsis. Her long-lost-soldier-lover hears them calling her name, and recognises her. But he thinks she’s dead, so he goes to stab himself. And Adonis just says ‘don’t do that’ weakly in his Scottish accent. It’s such a simple line but was so funny)
And the funny scenes
There was a funny scene where Thespis is in chains. Polly is pretending to be the Tyrant, and tells the guard to unlock him, but then Tyrant comes in and says to lock him up again, and this gets repeated a lot and all gets chaotic. It’s very funny.
There were also lots of jokes about them ‘creating’ acting. There’s the recurring comedy from Melampus about inventing the line ‘the show must go on’ – she keeps saying things along these lines, like ‘the show must continue despite difficulties’, and in the end she says the line and audience cheers.
Their first drama rehearsal was funny as well. Thespis says they need to warm up, then does the ‘zap’ from the game ‘zap zap boing’. The audience laughed really loudly at this – there were clearly some drama students in the audience who related to this and understood how weird it is that this is seem as ‘the’ warm up game. By positioning this show as the ‘first’ play, and inventing acting, it enabled you to look at some of the things that get taken for granted in acting/plays and laugh at it.
The comedy in this musical was a bit different to the comedy in The Play That Goes Wrong and other ‘goes wrong’ plays. These plays, as the names suggest, focus on the play going wrong. There were a few moments of this in Thespians the Musical – such as the first play rehearsal where Adonis sings lines from the script such as ‘enter from stage right’ and ‘dramatic pause’. But this musical isn’t about them putting on a play that goes wrong. The play that they perform acutlaly goes really well and is a great success. And the comedy comes from other things. It’s nice that it’s different to the ‘goes wrong’ plays, and shows that this company can do different types of comedy as well.
The songs, set and costumes
I really liked the songs in Thespians the Musical. There were some nice songs that were moving and powerful. And also plenty of funny songs with clever wordplay in the lyrics.
The set was good as well – a good amount of staging and props that all worked well. And some great costumes as well, and good use of lighting. The production of it just seemed to work well, and was the right level and tone for the show.
The deeper themes beyond the comedy
Although this show is clearly a comedy, there are some deeper themes as well. There are some moving moments. The show has a lot of themes around finding your purpose, finding out who you are, and being brave to go after your dreams.
All of the five main characters show growth throughout the show, learning to be good friends to each other. And also learning to be brave and strive for what they want and believe in. Poly learns to not hide behind her books so much, and Atlas learns to be brave and confess his love for Thespis. And Thespis learns the power of friendship and love. And even the Disney-style villain of the Tyrant becomes good.
In a way, this character development is a little bit cliched. But it also really works. And it means you leave the show with a warm feeling. You’ve had a good laugh throughout the show with the clever word play and puns, and the jokes about the invention of acting. But you’ve also got fond of these characters, and seen them grow, and seen them happy at the end. It’s a show that you leave feeling happy, which is nice.
What I wasn’t so sure about
My Thespians the Musical theatre review is really positive – there’s not much at all that I didn’t like. I’m not sure it’s going to be up there with my favourite musicals of all time – it’s not at the level of Les Miserables or anything like that. But it’s not meant to be. For a fun comedy musical, where you leave the show with a warm feeling, it hits the spot.
I guess you could say that you have to focus quite a lot, as some jokes are quite subtle, or the jokes are in the song lyrics so you have to understand what they’re singing to get the jokes and the plot. But I didn’t find this an issue personally, and flet like they did it well. Maybe I would have liked a bit more of the classic ‘goes wrong’ elements when they performed the show – but it was also nice to see something that doesn’t repeat these jokes. When I’ve seen Peter Pan Goes Wrong and A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, they’ve felt a bit same-y (although still very good), so maybe it was good that this is different.
Would I recommend Thespians the Musical
My Thespians the Musical theatre review is positive, so I would definitely recommend going to see this show. It’s on it’s first UK tour in 2026, but I can see it doing well. It’s a nice, light-hearted comedy, with nice characters and character development. With good songs, set, costumes and lighting, it’s a good show. It’s not going to hit my top 10 musicals of all times, but for a fun evening out, it hits the spot.
Hope you enjoyed my Thespians the Musical theatre review! Check out my other theatre reviews for more shows in the West End, across the UK and the world.
