Best stage shows celebrating the 1970s

From Seventies-set plays like Alterations and Stereophonic to musical fun with ABBA Voyage and Grease, there are plenty of groovy shows to enjoy on London's stages this year.

Break out your bell-bottoms and platform shoes, and do the hustle to “Dancing Queen”: it’s all about the 1970s right now in London theatre! Audiences just can’t get enough of that distinctive decade, from its fabulous fashion, fizzy humour, and catchy music to more profound reflections on class, race, gender, and a seismic time in our changing society.

There are plenty of different ways to explore the 1970s through shows, from musicals and plays to comedies and concerts, stories revolving around families, rock bands, tailors and hoteliers, and settings ranging from specific parts of Britain and America to a mythical ABBA show.

So, read on for our guide to the best Seventies theatre, and enjoy a time-travelling trip via an entertaining – and stylish – London production.

Alterations

Michael Abbensetts’s 1978 comic play, rediscovered via the National Theatre’s Black Plays Archive and brilliantly directed by Lynette Linton, centres on Windrush immigrant Walker. He has big dreams of turning his tailoring business into a swanky shop on Carnaby Street, but he runs up against the era’s virulent racism, and struggles to balance his family relationships with his ambition.

Abbensetts’s propulsive work plunges us into Walker’s dilemma as he tries to redefine his identity, as Black British man, and sense of belonging. The tailor shop setting also means that designer Frankie Bradshaw can really go to town with the Seventies looks: flared trousers, crushed velvet suits, trilbies, headscarves, and orange jumpers.

Book Alterations tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Fawlty Towers – The Play

Hailed as one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time, Fawlty Towers ran for just two perfect seasons in 1975 and 1979. But its legacy lives on, and now its genius has been skilfully transposed, by co-creator John Cleese, into a stage comedy which retains all of the period charm (and chaos) of its Torquay hotel setting.

That ranges from the era-specific characters, including Basil Fawlty, his wife Sybil, and Spanish waiter Manuel, to the concerns underlying the hilarious slapstick, especially class distinctions. Liz Ascroft’s set even gifts us the chintzy lime-green wallpaper, Basil’s cravat, and Sybil’s gravity-defying bouffant. Just don’t mention the war!

Book Fawlty Towers – The Play tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

ABBA Voyage

What could be more quintessentially 1970s than Swedish mega-group ABBA? If you’ve ever fantasised about jumping in a time machine so you could see this pop phenomenon in concert in their heyday, you’re in luck: that’s basically the premise of the extraordinary high-tech experience ABBA Voyage.

This virtual concerts features avatars (or “ABBAtars”) of the original quartet as they appeared in the 1970s. The band reunited to create the performances via motion capture – and the effect is uncanny. You get to see and hear them perform their amazing hits, such as “Knowing Me, Knowing You”, “Mamma Mia”, “Waterloo”, “The Winner Takes It All”, and “Dancing Queen”.

Book ABBA Voyage tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Stereophonic

It is 1976 and a rock band on the cusp of fame is gathered in a recording studio to create that all-important second album. But dramas soon erupt thanks to romantic conflicts between bandmates, creative differences, addiction, stress, and sheer exhaustion. Can great art stem from all that turmoil?

That’s the key question at the heart of David Adjmi’s highly acclaimed, multi-Tony Award-winning Broadway play, which features incredible 1970s-esque original music composed by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler. Stereophonic places us right in the room where it happens: it’s both a lovingly crafted period piece, and a sharply pertinent drama.

Book Stereophonic tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical

Secret Cinema is back with another jaw-dropping immersive experience. This time it’s a trip to Rydell High for the 1970s movie-musical classic Grease. You can join innocent new girl Sandy, the too-cool-for-school Pink Ladies, and the Greased Lightnin’-loving Danny and the T-Birds for this youthful romp: it’s definitely the one that you want.

The fun of Secret Cinema is that you’re not just watching the story but becoming part of it. That means being surrounded by live performances, while also having fun at the fair, hand-jiving at the school dance, or sipping a milkshake in the American diner. Relive those summer nights in this 1970s teen dream.

Check back for Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Marc Brenner, Hugo Glendinning, ABBA Voyage, Julieta Cervantes, Secret Cinema/Paramount Pictures