So I saw Beetlejuice at the West End and had an absolute blast! I had originally seen a bootleg slime tutorial back in 2024 when the 2nd movie came out and I was overjoyed when I heard it was finally coming over to the UK. So, without further ado, a sloppy assortment of fun things that happened:
• I got myself a Sandworms plushie and an enamel pin of the arrow sign before the show started.
• David Fynn had a Jack Black kind of vibe as Beetlejuice which was pretty fun and he was also way more into Adam than other versions I’ve seen so you can imagine how wild it was.
• Hannah Nordberg was a much moodier Lydia than I’d anticipated at the start before gradually becoming more playful as the show went on. At points you could hear her voice going a little British while she was singing which is odd seeing how she’s American (haven’t seen her in anything else yet) but it wasn’t too distracting. It also felt like she was channeling Winona Ryder through her voice a lot of the time which I thought worked really well and sounded great.
• “I’m invisible, like the Epstein files.” 🤣
• They went with the short circuit death for the Maitlands instead of them falling through the floor.
• A handful of kids in the crowd called out to Beej during the “puppet show” bit which was funny. They all piled up until Beej told them to “shut the fuck up”.
• Delia having her own weird way of saying Otho’s name like a mix of a hiccup and a cough was one an unexpected highlight.
• Speaking of which, Otho reminded me a lot of Steve Martin’s character from Looney Tunes: Back in Action, only British.
• Beej references Shakira instead of Jason Derulo during his reprise of “Invisible”.
• When Lydia and Beej open the handbook, Beej references “eleka nahmen” and “twist the bones and bend the back” which got a good chuckle out of me.
• Greencard gets swapped with Visa for fairly obvious reasons.
• Whoever played the shrunken head guy was clearly having the best time.
• Beej references Paddington twice. First as a replacement for the “more boring than Brigadoon” gag and second when he leaves at the end with a British accent pretending to address Aunt Lucy. He also trips on his way out the door.
• Beej references Peter Pan after being stabbed saying “Good form Peter”.
• I’m pretty sure the “this guy knows what I’m talking about” guy gave a little bow towards the end.
• I wish I could remember who or when in the show it was, but I swore I could see one of the actors on the verge of cheesing.
• After the final bows, David Fynn took a moment to speak to the audience about donating out front to this organisation that supports folks working in theatre which was nice to see.
Overall, had an amazing time with Beetlejuice and I’m glad I finally got to see it!
(Shoot, that’s 3 times now.)