Stereophonic review: It isn't a musical, or a play. It's an event

Posted on Jun 16, 2025 | By Sian McBride

If you enjoyed The Beatles: Get Back documentary, Stereophonic might just be your next obsession. David Adjmi’s intimate portrayal of a promising young band hits all the right notes (once the technician sorted out the reverb).

What makes Stereophonic remarkable is its realism; capturing the deeply unglamorous moments that contribute to creative brilliance and personal disaster. The show starts without a stadium style build-up, there’s no swell of music or a quiet hush that announces the band’s arrival. In fact, the house lights are still up when Diana (Lucy Karczewski) and Peter (Jack Riddiford), - one of the band's couples - saunter onto the stage. Dressed in effortlessly cool suede, flares and oranges, they match the recording studio's 70s aesthetic. It’s soon apparent why they blend in with the furniture so well - the studio isn’t just their work space, or their home, it is a part of them.

And for the next 3 hours, we feel like we’re part of it too. Like flies on the wall, we observe the space, designed in such detail by David Zinn, as it is abused, crashed in, and fought over. And we watch as these flawed friends-cum-lovers-cum-enemies test each other artistically and personally.

The band is fractured in all the ways great bands tend to be - creatively, romantically, existentially. Two couples in the band mean two slow-motion implosions. It’s like two John and Yoko situations happening simultaneously. Conversations that start with nothing suddenly tip into something. There are no dramatic breakdowns or staged slaps; everything is subtler, more emotionally acute. The pregnant pauses, the loaded glances, the dry silences between takes - they all hold weight. And when the venom does come, it gushes out with a force that’s been building for hours.

It’s not just compelling - it’s addictive. It's immersive in the most lived-in way, and, unlike Simon the drummer, it never drags.

In between the artistic meltdowns and rifts and riffs, there are genuinely funny moments - especially from the long-suffering sound engineers Grover (Eli Gelb) and Charlie (Andrew R. Butler), (both reprising their roles from the show’s record-breaking Broadway run). They navigate dust in the buttons, echo from the snare drum, and band members insisting on re-recording the same guitar solo again and again and again. Their dry frustration is some of the show’s best comedy, and like the rest of the production, it is all beautifully played under.

Written by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, the music at the center of it all is enthralling. Recording the tracks directly on to the tape, they all have that analog, bruised, 70s warmth; they crackle with promise and melancholy. At one point, I was convinced I already knew one of them. That’s how timeless they sound.

Butler, a Grammy and Brit Award-winning musician, clearly understands both the creative grind and how to craft a hit. The vocals, especially from Karczewski and Nia Towle (who plays bandmate Holly), are hauntingly beautiful - ethereal and folky, with flashes of Amy Winehouse grit and soul. It’s no stretch to believe this fictional band could top the Billboard charts.

Stereophonic isn’t a musical, or a play. It’s an event. A portrait of the creative process in all its beauty, boredom, pressure, and pain. They may be your new favourite old band.

Sterophonic plays at the Duke of York's Theatre until 11 October 2025.