Can Stranger Things replicate Harry Potter and save the West End?

Is it a musical?” was Kate Trefry’s first thought when Matt and Ross Duffer, the sibling duo behind the Netflix horror hit, Stranger Things, asked her to write the script for a new stage adaptation. “Now I understand how obnoxious that question is,” laughs Trefry, speaking over Zoom on a break from back-to-back rehearsals for that same play, which opens this week in London’s West End.

The idea of a play was first floated five years ago as a “mad fantasy” by , whose smash hits on stage include , and and who is helming this new stage production. Even producer Sonia Friedman, renowned for making the impossible possible in productions such as , said Daldry’s proposal had been a “curveball”. After all, how does one bring the dark, CGI-rendered underworld of to the stage without losing any of its power – or its chills? How does