The Great Gatsby London Musical Review – It’s a knockout, Old Sport
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Hay Brunsdon
A jazz-soaked, midnight toast of a musical—sumptuous, soaring, and steeped in longing. F. Scott Fitzgerald would’ve ordered a second bottle and stayed for more.
The stage glows green as Gatsby’s silhouette gazes across the water at the blinking light on Daisy’s dock—one of the most iconic images in American literature, a symbol of longing, illusion, and the glittering promise of the American Dream. And just like that, we’re off: into 1920s Long Island, a jazz-soaked world of romance, heartbreak, and one hell of a party.
Jamie Muscato’s Gatsby is a revelation. When he sings “For Her”, his cry of “Daisy…” aches with such yearning it feels like champagne corks are going to pop out of their bottles. We’re talking the kind of soaring vocal climb akin to Chris’s “Why, God, Why?” in Miss Saigon—swooping, desperate, and just shy of devastation. Muscato’s Gatsby is part wounded war hero, part lovesick schoolboy, and fully lost in a fantasy five years gone by.
That fantasy is written into every inch of the production. His mansion, imported brick-by-brick from France, gives off Beauty and the Beast vibes (complete with brooding man in the shadows haunted by the past) and a side of Mad Hatter’s tea party. Gatsby throws soirées of mythic scale—sequins, fireworks, flowing champagne, and the yellow Rolls purring outside like a golden ticket. It’s New Year’s Eve in June, darling, and everyone’s invited!
The set is constantly whispering of what’s to come: dappled light flickers like a warning, and those pool steps? They're there from the start—no spoilers, but the mood knows what’s waiting. Between all that glitz, the contrast of the desolate Valley of the Ashes hits hard. This show knows how to balance decadence and dread.
Daisy, played with warmth and fire by Frances Mayli McCann, is no passive dream girl here. She’s complicated, conflicted, and—crucially—real. Gatsby may be in love with an idea of her, this golden, untouchable beacon he’s been chasing for years, but this Daisy isn’t the green light. She’s a woman shaped by privilege and paralysed by the fear of change, trapped in a gilded cage where comfort always wins out over chaos. Their reunion crackles with tension—is it love, or just nostalgia in a really good dress? Gatsby has built his whole identity around winning her back, but Daisy is too entangled in the world that made her. This production gives Daisy more nuance than the novel allowed: she’s not a villain, nor a fantasy, but a woman navigating a world built by men.
This story is perfect for the stage because there is something inherently theatrical about Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, and director Marc Bruni leans into it with flair – it's tragedy wrapped in tulle. The whole production feels like Gatsby’s mind made manifest: obsessive, immersive, and just slightly unhinged. Gatsby’s champagne-soaked infatuation, their so-called ‘chance encounter’, even wearing his old military uniform; it cleverly captures his desperate longing to pick up exactly where they left off five years ago as if he wants them to ‘perform’ the roles of their past selves. It's fancy dress meets fatal delusion! Even the parties are a mirage, a glittering bubble waiting to burst.
The intoxicating jazz-pop score sparkles, and the rest of the cast brings plenty of fizz: Corbin Bleu’s Nick is a smooth, slightly bewildered observer (as he should be); Amber Davies charms as cynical Jordan; and Jon Robyns’s Tom oozes the kind of privileged arrogance that makes your skin crawl, brazenly taking his cousin-in-law off to meet his mistress. Yuck!
The themes haven’t aged a day: new money vs. old, class vs. cash, power, male ego, competition, social mobility, the pursuit of status, and what it means to be a woman caught in the middle.
“Large parties are so intimate”—and this one’s the greatest of them all, glittering across London’s biggest stage until September, Gatsby is certainly going to make a splash in the West End this summer. Don’t miss out, old sport, book your tickets today.