Ian Cheeseman finds Royal Caribbean’s streamlined cruise-ship production of Back to the Future: The Musical delivers the spectacle, pace and heart of the stage hit — DeLorean and all.
Being a self-confessed fan of Back to the Future: the Musical, when we were booking our family holiday for summer 2026, and I saw that there was a version of the show at sea, that clinched it, we were going on that cruise.
Star of the Seas, at the time of our trip, was the biggest cruise ship ever built, so it had everything aboard you could possibly wish for but they also promised a Broadway quality version of the show. The stage musical, which is touring the UK late this year and throughout 2027, made it’s World debut was at Manchester’s Opera House in 2020, only to have it’s initial run cut short by covid.
My son, who was twenty years old at the time, was a huge fan of the film, despite having been born a decade after it was made. When he heard there was to be a musical version he was excited but also worried it wouldn’t live up to his high expectations. We were there at the very first preview and we all came out with huge smiles on our faces. It was brilliant.
We managed to see it five times before it was shut down due to the pandemic but once it resumed in the West End we attended whenever we had the time and money. We even saw it on Broadway, so when we heard it was going to be performed on a ship we had to go.
My fear was that a shortened version for the Star of the Seas would feel like a cheaper copy. It wasn’t. To our amazement they had the Delorean on stage, just like the other versions, the special effects were all there and the cast, which included Jamal Kane Crawford, who was in the original Manchester cast and in the West End production, was as good as what we’ve seen elsewhere.
Jack Courtiour, who plays several parts in the show and understudies the Doc, is also the Company manager and he told me, “It had to be condensed for a cruise ship audience, of course, but it does feel exactly like the same show. It has the same production team from the original stage show and even Bob Gale the creator of the film has been here; very hands on. It’s his baby and he had a big input into the editing of the show. I think fans of the show will still enjoy it just as much.”
I can certainly vouch for that. Some of the songs have been shortened and the opening song of Act 2, It Works, has been dropped completely, but the quality and story telling is still exceptional. There’s an argument to say that the “at sea” version is closer to the original film because it’s paced brilliantly and has no interval.
Jack admitted that they do feel the ship swaying occasionally when performing, “We usually know when going into a show what the rockiness will be like and the captain and the bridge are very good at being transparent about what conditions are going to be like and there are things they can do to make it less rocky.”
If you’re unable to afford the cruise version of Back to the Future the good news is it’ll be back on stage at the Opera House in Manchester next July and I’m certain the stage and the auditorium will be rocking, but for very different reasons.