Freaky Friday

Bridget Carpenter (book), Tom Kitt (music), Brian Yorkey (lyrics), based on the Mary Rodgers novel and Disney film

Paul Taylor-Mills production, with HOME Manchester and others

HOME Manchester (UK premiere)

November 27, 2025-January 10, 2026; 3hrs

Rebecca Lock and Jena Pandya as mother and daughter Katherine and Ellie, and the cast of Freaky Friday at HOME Manchester. All pics: T Money Photography

This UK premiere of Freaky Friday looks like a Disney, sounds like a Disney and feels like a Disney in its most essential sense.

The show is jam-packed with teeny, high-school, high-octane flavour, with set, costume and choreography that could be cinematic in the shapes, colour-palate and attention to detail. Crazy, energetic kids dance rings around frazzled, belting mid-lifers, and the classic generational tension resolves with messages about the importance of love, family and (spoiler alert) a classic happily-ever-after where everybody's on board.

There's a tested formula here, with the Aristotelian principle of the entire story-arc unfolding within the space of one day. Nothing's too serious, and the grief over a dead father, academic failure and even an eight-year-old runaway can be lightened with a song and a dance. And, of course, everything comes right in the end.

In some ways this body-swap comedy is musical theatre by the Disney-movie book, but there are a few other borrowings, whether conscious or not. The circular framing of the stage decorated by the machinery of clocks, in combination with a song entitled Just One Day (in case the Aristotelian principle was by some chance lost on you) is reminiscent of One Short Day from Wicked, with a remarkably similar title motif: all the same notes, but in a slightly different order. 

There is a great idea that harks back to the 1950s, with an angelic choral announcement at the entrance of the male lead. It's a lovely moment. But elsewhere the songs appear at odd moments, that don't quite highlight the moments of heightened emotion as in traditional musical theatre, but just appear for the sake of song. Kind of like in a movie...

Disney stage musicals work best when they diverge from the cinematic and embrace the spectacle of what the stage can do best (think The Lion King, or Beauty and the Beast) and this one doesn't quite do that. The moments of "magic" don't do quite as much for us because flying hourglasses and breaking ornaments in slow-motion is the magic of cinema, not the stage. Similarly, at HOME there's no pit, so wherever the orchestra is hidden, it's just that, so we can't see the mechanics of live music, just like in a... You get my point.

What does work is the comic body-swap acting of the two leads, Rebecca Lock as mum Katherine playing hilariously in sulky-teenage mode, and Jena Pandya as Ellie the teen, hosting the soul of her keen but up-tight mum for the day. It could be confusing if the acting weren't absolutely on point. And what fabulous voices. Also quite wonderful is the powerful voice of Tori Scott, playing Katherine's assistant Tori (if it weren't already confusing enough!). And there's some wonderfully precise vocal runs from Max Mirza as Adam.

If you like your theatre essentially theatrical, this might not be your cup of tea. But if you like teen Disney on screen and you fancy a trip to the theatre, this one's for you.

More info and tickets here