Review: Disney’s High School Musical

27-08-26 at Lowry, Salford Quays by Georgia Cook & Fio Tretheway

★★★★

It’s always handy attending shows and writing these reviews as a pair, especially when watching a screen-to-stage musical adaptation, because inevitably one of us will be intimately familiar with the source material, while the other one will be going in completely blind.

It was much the same this time, when last night we went to see the Gala performance of Disney’s High School Musical, the stage musical, at the Lowry in Manchester. I (Georgia) have very fond memories of watching the original High School Musical trilogy as a child. I wouldn’t call myself a superfan, but I knew all the songs and a fair few of the dance moves, and I was the prime age demographic at the time. Fio, on the other hand, has never seen the film and was only partially aware of the music (A High School Musical novice, if you will.) Meaning that we managed to capture both potential audience viewpoints – the prepared, and the unprepared.

Fear not; as far as we were both concerned, Disney’s High School Musical the musical was a lot of fun. Easy to follow – even for someone unfamiliar with the original film series – and beautifully bombastic, with fantastic dance numbers and great renditions of the film’s high-energy early 2000’s hits. A simple story of high school romance and low stakes teenage drama which felt very charming indeed to revisit as an adult.

Straight out of the gate, we were met with a shiny recreation of an American high school basketball court, complete with atmospheric sound design, overhead screens and an energetic cheerleader squad (plus mascot) welcoming us to our seats. Some seats had even been placed on the stage itself, giving the impression of packed court bleachers and further adding to the immersion. For the first five or so minutes you really do feel like you’re about to watch a game. We were even taught a cheer routine (which we all promptly forgot by the finale.)

Into the show itself, certain characters felt straight out of the movie – heads up especially to Caitlin Tipping (Sharpay), Luke Bayer (Rhyan) and Char Burnett (Taylor), with Tobias Turley (Troy) and Leonor Correia (Gabriella) as a sweet leading couple.

The dance scenes were fast-paced and energetic – especially impressive were the numbers involving basketballs. There were moments when the show’s frenetic energy seemed to fall flat. Certain scenes seemed to have been cut or altered without much internal reasoning, with others extended in order to bring in character moments from later films, forcing the show to lose pacing and a certain amount of coherency at points. Although the basketball court set was used in a variety of interesting ways to create new backdrops – school lockers drawn out to create stairs or rooftops, cafeteria tables and chairs moved around to create classrooms – the minimal scenery did leave a few moments feeling more lacklustre than they otherwise could have been. Despite these minor gripes, we really enjoyed our time with this musical, and highly recommend it for a bright, energetic, family-friendly night out, with a positive message about being yourself and chasing your passions.

Disney’s High School Musical runs at Lowry until 19 September 2026 – Get more information and tickets HERE.