Rent Review: Gaten Matarazzo's Bohemians Land in the West End

The new West End production of Rent extended its run before it even officially opened. That fact alone tells you where Jonathan Larson's musical sits in the affections of its audience. It sits there firmly, and it isn't moving.

The show has arrived at the Tom Stoppard theatre in London, with Gaten Matarazzo — known to millions from Stranger Things — leading the cast. The Guardian's review frames it as a "grief-stricken 90s musical about friends living under the threat of Aids." That's the sobering engine under the singalong.

Why does this musical still hurt?

The origin story carries much of the weight. Jonathan Larson, Rent's creator, died just before the off-Broadway premiere in 1996, aged 35. The review calls this "a poignant echo of its raggle-taggle bohemians in New York, living fast and fearing death will come before their time."

The parallel is brutal and unavoidable. A composer writes a show about young artists running out of time, then runs out of time himself before the first night. Theatre-kid mythology was, in effect, printed on opening day. The Guardian notes the show remains "a forever fan favourite," and the pre-opening extension backs that claim with box-office arithmetic.

What does Luke Sheppard bring to it?

Director Luke Sheppard, fresh from Paddington: The Musical at the Savoy, has developed this staging from his earlier version at Manchester's Hope Mill theatre in 2020. It's a proven lineage rather than a fresh gamble. The Hope Mill production earned its own Guardian notice, and the show has climbed from a Manchester fringe room to a West End stage.

The staging choice matters. Onstage seating circles the performance space, and Sheppard, in the Guardian's phrase, "cradles the piece in community, knitting together the story's hopeful vagabonds." The actors don't vanish between scenes. They watch, harmonise, dance in their chairs. For the imperishable "Seasons of Love," the cast forms what the review describes as "something close to a prayer circle."

It's a deliberate architecture of belonging. A musical about chosen family, staged so that the company literally surrounds and holds the action, makes its theme visible in the room.

Is Rent one of the musical greats?

The review opens by posing exactly that question, and declines to hand over a simple verdict. What it documents instead is endurance: a 1996 show, born in loss, that still sells enough tickets to extend a West End run before press night. Matarazzo's presence guarantees a younger crowd; Larson's story guarantees they'll hear why the material matters.

For a piece about artists measuring their remaining time in seasons of love, the commercial pulse is healthy. That's the irony Larson never lived to see, and it's the strongest argument for the show's longevity that anyone could ask for.