People will love it – it just wasn’t the version of RENT that I wanted to see.
One of the most hyped revivals of 2026 has to be Jonathan Larson’s Tony Award-winning musical RENT, now playing at the newly renamed Tom Stoppard Theatre (previously the Duke of York’s) in London. Staged in the West End for the first time since 2007, this brave new production stars Stranger Things actor and Broadway performer Gaten Matarazzo as Mark.
THE STORY
RENT is a rock opera, based on Puccini’s 1896 La Bohème with some of its themes updated (swapping the tuberculosis outbreak for HIV and AIDS).
Set in New York’s East Village, RENT follows a group of young artists, musicians and friends, navigating love, ambition and creativity while trying to build lives on their own terms. This iconic musical captures the joy, uncertainty and resilience of a generation determined to make every moment count.
WHAT I LIKED AND DISLIKED
The set design is lovely. Small 80s-style televisions are dotted all around the stage and filmmaker Mark uses his camera to project his filming onto the screens. But sometimes those moments are shown on screen and sometimes they aren’t, which left me confused about whether that was deliberate (the characters have no electricity, after all) or whether the screens just weren’t working properly.
Jonathan Larson never lived to see the show’s success, as he died suddenly the day before the first preview. I wonder if that is why directors seem so reluctant to cut anything, to help it flow better and bring down an exhausting running time of nearly three hours.
I liked the choreography. It felt right for the time period, although I’m not sure the dancing didn’t detract from the story at times.
I spent the first half of the first act wondering why everyone was favouring shouting over singing. Were they portraying desperation? Perhaps. But if so, the message got lost, and it felt like a private-school production trying to relate to people less fortunate than themselves (without really knowing what that means). These characters are homeless, squatters, drug addicts and prostitutes, doing anything they can, just to survive. All whilst many of them are living with (and dying from) AIDS. Yet it felt as though the serious themes had been papered over to make a more family-friendly show.
RENT has so many iconic songs that everyone knows (‘Today 4 U’, ‘Tango Maureen’, ‘Out Tonight’, ‘Santa Fe’, ‘I’ll Cover You’, ‘La Vie Boheme’, ‘Take Me or Leave Me’ and of course ‘Seasons of Love’) but this could so easily be a great, gritty 90-minute musical with no interval that really lets rip and immerses you in the lives these people were actually living.
THE CAST
The cast are great. Gaten Matarazzo is perfectly cast as Mark, and Travis Ross is perfectly kooky and crazy as Roger. Billy Nevers as Collins was stunning in his reprise of ‘I’ll Cover You’. Jeevan Braich gives full-on ballroom drag as Angel, but I would have liked to see the character dirtier and struggling a little more (like Julia Roberts colouring in her boots in Pretty Woman).
Also in the cast are Alexa Lopez as Mimi, Lazy Violet as Maureen, Danielle Fiamanya as Joanne and Joaquin Pedro Valdes as Benny – all insanely talented with vocals for days.
The cast is completed by Baylie Carson, Laura Delany, Ryesha Higgs, Montoya Holloway-Johnson, Rhys Hopkins, Shem Omari James, Hannah Macpherson, TJ Matara-Holloway, Ryan Nixon, Leah Vassell, James Wilkinson-Jones and Kevin Yates.
DOES IT LIVE UP TO THE HYPE?
Not for me.
If you’re coming for the songs and a talented cast, there’s plenty to enjoy. But if you want the gritty, uncomfortable heart of RENT, I’m not sure this production delivers it. At nearly three hours, including the interval, it is a long time to sit through for a show that I think would be so much stronger tightened up.
It felt very safe and PG-rated when I wanted dark and gritty. But Rentheads will love it regardless – it just wasn’t the version of RENT that I wanted to see.
★★★
Reviewed by West End Wilma
Photos by Danny Kaan
RENT is playing at the Tom Stoppard Theatre (formerly the Duke of York’s Theatre) in London’s West End. The show has already extended and is now booking to 29 May 2027.
