Review Roundup: THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE-OFF MUSICAL Opens at the Noël Coward Theatre

The Great British Bake Off Musical is now running at the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End, for a limited twelve-week run through 13 May 2023.

Inspired by the TV show, The Great British Bake Off Musical follows the amateur bakers as they seek to impress the judges and battle their way to be crowned Star Baker. The audience are taken on a rollercoaster of a journey with memorable songs and dance as the bakers face trials, tribulations and baking failures, bringing them together in a story of friendship and romance along the way.

The cast features award-winning West End and Broadway actor John Owen Jones as Phil Hollinghurst, Haydn Gwynne as Pam Lee, Zoe Birkett as one half of the comedy presenter duo Kim and, and Grace Mouat as contestant Izzy.

See what the critics are saying...

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Debbie Gilpin, BroadwayWorld: Ultimately, the show does what it says on the cake tin. When it's funny, it's very funny; the humour leaps from saucy to surreal, and you never quite know what's coming next. Although patrons unfamiliar with the programme will be able follow pretty easily, this is one for the big Bake Off fans - see how many references to previous series you can spot! Overall, it's an enjoyable night out that brings something a little different to the West End.

Matt Wolf, The New York Times: This musical occupies a different, more innocent world - one in which strudels are restorative and, as the show puts it, "cake is the cure." I'm as fully on board with that message as anyone. What's needed is more art to accompany the heart.

Alice Saville, Time Out London: The thing that makes real-life episodes of 'Bake Off' enjoyable is the spontaneity, creativity and strangeness of ordinary people. You can't predict mishaps like Series 4's 'wrong custard' debacle, or invent characters like real-life whimsical baking witch Helena (Series 8). But this musical plods rather than innovates, showing its characters' half-familiar journeys as they progress from their first technical challenge to the garden party grand final. The grinding predictability of it all pounded my brain into a soft, gooey substance: the kind of thing you could use to fill a pavlova, in a pinch.

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard: The latest addition to the growing list of unnecessary musical adaptations should carry a content warning for diabetics. Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary's show tries to channel the plucky amateurism, warmth and end-of-the-pier innuendo of the TV baking competition but the results are wilfully lame and cloyingly saccharine.

Marianka Swain, London Theatre: Georgina Lamb enjoyably employs bowls, whisks and spoons in her whimsical choreography, while Alice Power not only re-creates the series' aesthetic perfectly but also whips up showstopping creations. Yes, you might wish for a tad more spice to balance out the sweetness, but it's hard not to melt when you see the contestants helping each other, or hear a lyric so English that it should be added to the national anthem: "Cake is the key/ And it comes with a cup of tea." Bliss.

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