Lord of the Rings

Stage version of JRR Tolkien's trilogy Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings is comes London in 2007 following its World Premiere at The Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Canada in March 2006.

The stage version of Lord of the Rings is adapted and written by Shaun McKenna and Matthew Warchus and features a score by India's most popular composer A.R. Rahman and the renowned Finnish group Värttinä, collaborating with Christopher Nightingale. It is directed by Matthew Warchus with designs by Rob Howell and choreography by Peter Darling.

The producer of The Lord of the Rings stage musical, Kevin Wallace, said: "It pushes the boundaries of what people expect to see in a theatre. It does have a wow factor and it has gone down amazingly in Canada... it's a hybrid, a musical play performed on an operatic scale with a lot of physical theatre."

"The parade of images in Matthew Warchus's production of The Lord of the Rings at The Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto is ceaseless and astonishing. The Black Riders are truly terrifying... The Ents, on stilts and held up by wires, do a superb job of looking like trees. The stage itself is a spectacle, constantly moving up, down and around, splitting apart and coming together again... This show, reputedly the most expensive ever, has spent its millions wisely. Practically too, as devices work strictly to serve the story... In this show the human element fights hard and sometimes wins, but the mechanical element, which is after all a human invention, is wonderful." The Guardian

"On the whole, it works, without resorting to the slick but soulless spectacle of Cirque du Soleil, or declining into Gothic cliche... The stage version's great strength lies in the way its constituent parts combine in an organic whole... Rob Howell's designs, exquisitely lit by Paul Pyant, are achieved with uncluttered economy rather than hi-tech wizardry... Visually, the show's rough-theatre aesthetic is put to dazzlingly inventive use... With some fine tuning, this tale could hold its audience in total thrall. For now, its best moments are, like the ring, an intoxicating enchantment." The Times