A long evening with flashes of genius

Duke of York’s

Stereophonic by David Adjmi comes from Broadway trailing the glory of a record number of Tony nominations for a play, and the Award for Best Play. If the reviews are anything to go by, it’s unlikely to repeat that success at the Oliviers. All the critics found it long but some were more absorbed than others by the story of a 70s rock band recording an album.

[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]

Five stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Alexander Cohen of BroadwayWorld loved it: ‘We feel like we are in the band, mixing harmonies, dubbing vocals, finding take after take exasperating. Writer David Adjmi accentuates the organic feel with conversations that overlap, slicing into each other with insecure ferocity, all finely tuned by director Daniel Aukin.’

Emma John for The Guardian was a fan: ‘At more than three hours, the run time can feel as indulgent as one of Pink Floyd’s longer tracks – but this is an extraordinary allegory for artistic perfectionism and the destruction it leaves in its wake.’

Helen Hawkins at The Arts Desk pointed out: ‘What makes this play greater than it might appear on paper is its approach to authenticity. Theatrical “reality” is often designed as a continuous stream of speeches and actions, until Beckett and Pinter et al upset that applecart. Stereophonic uses all the hiatuses, sometimes lengthy ones, that can punctuate a real event, especially one fraught with microaggressions that drive people offstage, forcing the action to stop until they return.’

The Financial Times‘ Sarah Hemming also advised that this was more than a typical drama: ‘Adjmi’s script comes in somewhere between Chekhov and the slow-burn dramas of Annie Baker, gradually building towards something much greater than the sum of its parts…in the end, this is a drama about the very human search for something bigger than ourselves.’

Four stars ⭑⭑⭑⭑

The Telegraph’s Dominic Cavendish was upbeat but with reservations: ‘While the balance between art and heart-ache, technical challenge and emotional clash, is well achieved, what’s missing are the specifics that might give the band a stronger inner-life. We’re left in the dark when it comes to the minutiae of their past, or the day-to-day logistics of their existence’.

Alice Saville’s review in The Independent doesn’t carry a rating but it was full of praise: ‘It romances its subject, caressing these bandmates with loving washes of golden light, dressing them in a lavish wardrobe of gorgeous 1970s blouses and flares, and letting us in on their intimate moments of silliness. These songs are private things, Adjmi shows us, scrawled in a diary in a moment of pain, trying to reach places ordinary words can’t reach.’

Antonia Georgiou for The Upcoming said: ‘Stereophonicis a triumphant celebration of the art of collaborative songwriting. With a soaring score and stellar performances, it’s a must-see for theatre and music lovers alike.’ The Standard’s Nick Curtis called it ‘a fine-grained, audacious work full of overlapping dialogue and bold use of silence and repetition amid the emotional flashpoints, not to mention some terrific songs’.

Three stars ⭑⭑⭑

The Times’ Clive Davis was disappointed: ‘The performances are first-rate, and David Zinn’s set really does make you feel as if you have a seat on the mixing desk. Yet at over three hours long it’s burdened with far too many longueurs.’

Sam Marlowe of The Stage said, ‘it’s insightful and crammed with texture…It’s sensitively directed by Daniel Aukin and the acting, from an ensemble that includes three of the original Broadway cast, feels faultlessly real and flavoursome. But in electing to give us a piece that dwells on the painful, mundane minutiae, Adjmi is authentic almost to a fault: with a protracted running time, the play has the languorous quality of an unedited documentary’.

Theatre Weekly’s Greg Stewart was unconvinced: ‘Stereophonic struggles to justify its over three-hour runtime. The play’s fly-on-the-wall realism, while admirable, often comes at the expense of narrative momentum. There’s a sense that we’re watching a band rehearse rather than a story unfold. The emotional arcs, particularly the interpersonal tensions within the group, are hinted at more than fully explored.’

Scott Matthewman for Musical Theatre Review agreed: ‘In its long stretches of extraneous ennui, Stereophonic risks undoing what, when it is at full power, it succeeds in doing: acknowledging that the messiest of behind-the-scenes chaos can, just sometimes, produce sheer musical magic.’

Critics’ Average Rating 4.3⭑

Value rating 44 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)

Stereophonic can be seen at the Duke of York’s Theatre until 11 October 2025. Click here to buy tickets direct from the Duke of York’s Theatre 

Click here to read Paul Seven Lewis’s review of Stereophonic

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