Jane Eyre A Musical makes its UK premiere — with the man behind Les Misérables at the helm

Charlotte Brontë published Jane Eyre in 1847 as something quite specific: a first-person account of a woman who refuses to be made small. The novel has been adapted repeatedly, for stage and screen, but the musical — with music and lyrics by Paul Gordon and a book by John Caird — offers the rarest kind of fidelity, building its dramatic architecture out of interiority rather than event. It premiered in Toronto, collected five Tony nominations in New York, and has spent a generation waiting for its London moment.

That moment arrives with a production co-directed by Caird alongside Broadway veteran Megan McGinnis, whose stage credits span Beauty and the Beast, Little Women, and Beetlejuice. The connection matters: Caird co-directed the original production of Les Misérables — one of the form’s defining achievements — and returns to the work of large-scale literary adaptation with a show that made much of the same journey, from a canonised Victorian novel to a musical reckoning with what adaptations owe their source. His most recent UK staging, Spirited Away at the London Coliseum, was received as among the more ambitious productions in recent British musical theatre.

West End actress Charlie Burn leads as Jane, a part that asks its performer to hold the moral authority of the narrative while occupying its lowest social register. Opposite her, Ashley Gilmour plays Rochester. Hannah Lindsey takes Bertha Mason — the character in whom the novel lodges its account of how Victorian society classified and discarded the women it could not accommodate — while Isabelle Methven plays Helen Burns, the child whose theology functions as the novel’s first ethical counter-argument. The ensemble also features Melad Hamidi, Connor Wood, and Jonathan Andrew Hume. The full creative team includes choreographer Georgina Lamb, set and costume designer Morgan Large, and musical director Ben Kubiak.

Jane Eyre A Musical production at Southwark Playhouse Elephant — Image: Southwark Playhouse

Production images by photographer Victoria Davies have now been released, marking the show’s press preview period. The EP — Highlights From The UK Premiere Cast — is now available to stream and download on all major platforms. A music video for ‘Sirens’, one of Paul Gordon’s more sustained pieces in the score, is also now live.

Jane Eyre A Musical originally premiered in Toronto in 1996 and ran on Broadway in 2000, receiving five Tony Award nominations. This UK staging is produced by Adam Blanshay Productions in partnership with the original Canadian producers, David and Hannah Mirvish, in the show’s thirtieth-anniversary year. The production plays at Southwark Playhouse Elephant — 1 Dante Place, London SE11 4RX — through 24 October 2026. Tickets are priced from £20, with the press night on Tuesday 8 September. Full listings and booking at southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.

Tags: musicals, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre A Musical, John Caird, Paul Gordon, Southwark Playhouse