Review
Review: Stranger Things: First Shadow
Why there’s never been a better time to brush up on your Hawkins history ahead of the final season of Stranger Things
Remember when the biggest special effect on stage was a chandelier being lowered? Ten minutes into Stranger Things: First Shadow an entire WWII warship is driven into the stalls. We’re entering the West End’s blockbuster era, and this is the play that got us here.
A few years ago, the idea of putting Netflix’s landmark action horror show on stage would have seemed a bit ridiculous – but it stands now as an example of just how ambitious theatre can be if it wants to. Every bit as slick, exciting, scary and impressive as the series, the West End production lands more like a Hollywood theme park ride than a London stage drama, and it’s never felt more essential for fans as the final season prepares to screen this winter.
Written by Kate Trefry from a story developed with Jack Thorne and The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things: First Shadow is an integral part of the show’s canon – a prequel set mostly in 1959 that fills in the backstory of limb-snapping, eye-sucking demon Vecna when he was still just troubled teen Henry Creel. Here we also get to see series favourites Hopper, Joyce, Bob and Dr. Brenner as their younger selves too, adding colour and shade to the storylines that are now finally being wrapped up in season five. This, though, is Henry’s story – and the story of how evil first takes roots in small-town America during the Cold War.
Fans of the show will be missing the entire opening chapter of the story if they haven’t seen First Shadow, as well as all the callbacks and nods to other corners of Stranger Things lore that make the world feel so alive. What they’re missing more, though, is the chance to see a genuine landmark of West End history – a production that signals a major leap forward in what’s possible in a live stage show.
Now two years old, and already having its own feature-length making-off documentary on Netflix, First Shadow still feels groundbreaking. Even when you think you know how it’s all done, it never loses the power to shock and dazzle. You know you’re looking at a blend of magic show illusions, practical effects, digital design and clever choreography, but it never looks like it – never not feeling genuine and losing the sense of immersion.
As a piece of pure stage craft, it’s extraordinary stuff. Better still is the way director Stephen Daldry puts it all in service of the story, and of Louis McCartney’s singular performance as tortured boy outcast Henry, bleeding real pain and angst even as he’s flying around the stage without wires or turning into a giant spider.
Not just content with staging a fully-fledged live sci-fi action movie, Stranger Things: First Shadow throws in a dozen other subversions of the form at the same time – mixing body horror with musical numbers; high school comedy with themes of abuse; a cracking 50s soundtrack with synths, smoke, lasers and screens.
Currently finishing up with a trailer for Stranger Things season five after the encore, First Shadow feels like the realfirst season of the show – the one you only get to experience in person. More than that though, the production feels like a trailer for whatever’s coming next in the West End, with nothing now too big, too bold, or too ambitious to pull off properly.
Stranger Things: First Shadow is currently booking to April 2026. Find tickets here
