Review Round-Up: THE HUNGER GAMES ON STAGE at Troubadour Canary Wharf Theatre

Based on the bestselling book series by Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games is set in the dystopian future society of Panem, where each year children are reaped from the twelve districts to fight in the Hunger Games. When Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her sister’s place in the games, she unwittingly becomes the face of a revolution against the cruel oppression of the Capitol. The stage play is adapted by Conor McPherson (The Brightening Air, Girl from the North Country, The Weir), directed by Matthew Dunster (Hedda, Shirley Valentine, 2:22 – A Ghost Story), and stars Mia Carragher as Katniss Everdeen, Euan Garrett as Peeta Mellark, and Joshua Lacey as Haymitch Abernathy, with a pre-recorded cameo from John Malkovich as President Snow.

What are critics saying about The Hunger Games On Stage?

The Stage

”Plenty to impress fans of the franchise”

★★★★

Holly O’Mahony was impressed by the theatre’s purpose built auditorium with its revolving seat segments. She noted that the show showed “some friction between making it theatrical… and a desire to impress with spectacle, flames and mid-air fights.” The fight choreography was a highlight for her: “Kev McCurdy’s fight direction orchestrates gasp-worthy duels.” She was disappointed that the hurried pace left little time to get to know and feel invested in the minor characters, particularly the other tributes, but thought the show did justice to the book’s more unsettling moments. She concluded: “I left hoping that the venue will one day bring us parts two and three.”

Read the review here.

London Box Office

This felt like high-end theme park entertainment

★★★

Stuart King thought McPherson’s “cut and paste adaptation…struggles to imbue the supporting characters with relatable personalities and motivations.” He acknowledged the “theatrical flourishes” of the set, but ultimately found it to be “like high-end theme park entertainment with nothing new added to the source material to commend it.” He thought that dividing the seating into districts to echo the story’s world-building was “a nice touch” but created “something of a disconnect between the audience and the onstage performers.” He concluded that the show will undoubtedly appeal to long-time fans of the franchise but for himself, “I found myself asking why it wouldn’t have been infinitely simpler to have stayed at home and rewatched the movie.”

Read the review here.

The Guardian

Eye-popping visuals and a strong lead performance

★★★

Arifa Akbar thought the play was “all spectacle above emotion”, noting the “Super Bowl optics” and “fast-changing set by Miriam Buether and energetic choreography from Charlotte Broom” overshadowed much of the tension and dread that should have dominated the first half. Mia Carragher, she said, “is fresh-faced, physical and thankfully does not imitate Lawrence’s laconic performance”, but Euan Garrett “feels more of a sidekick”, and the romance between them is disappointing. Other characters also feel less fleshed-out because of the production’s rushed pace. She thought the play “burst to life in the second half”, and the auditorium with its moving blocks of seats created a sense of immersion. “It excels in action drama,” she wrote, “and at times seems like an analogy for child soldiers in real-life wars.”

Read the review here.

Mia Carragher and Euan Garrett in THE HUNGER GAMES ON STAGE. Photo by Johan Perrson.

The Independent

”Dazzling bits of stage trickery bring this dark dystopia to life”

★★★

Alice Saville described the show as a “big but unsubtle staging” that offers “nerve-shredding, movie-style spectacle”. She praised the stage effects and fight scenes that allow the play’s tense moments to “plunge the audience right into this dangerous world – as though you’re fighting for your life, along with its cast of embattled teens.” Carragher, she thought, was “impressively athletic in her stage debut”. She appreciated how the themes of the story felt “incredibly current”, comparing it to Netflix’s Squid Game. But she also found that the adaptation doesn’t “give the audience enough space to get truly invested in this story.” She concluded that the production has “all the bells, bangs and whistles you’d expect, but it hasn’t truly understood the appeal of its source material.”

Read the review here.

TimeOut

Very nearly clicks – just a stronger lead away from triumph

★★★

Andrzej Lukowski acknowledged the trickiness of staging something as action-packed as The Hunger Games and thought the creative team did a good job considering the challenges, using special effects, a rapidly changing set, and “some tightly drilled choreography… to create a sequence that’s coherent and gripping.” He thought Dunster did an effective, if unsubtle, job of conveying the book’s themes: “It never lectures you on its themes, it’s just obvious what they are.” He felt Carragher lived up to the physical demands of the role but “she’s somewhat light on the ol’ charisma and she talks in a breathy Marilyn Monroe-style accent that is odd bordering on distracting.” He ended by wondering if a new story set in the world of The Hunger Games might have been a better idea.

Read the review here.

WhatsOnStage

Flickers of brilliance that don’t catch fire

★★★

Alex Wood agreed that, “Bringing that kind of sprawling story to the stage is no small feat.” However, he found that the show felt “caught between two impulses: thoughtful character study and full-throttle spectacle, and never really satisfyingly landing either.” He praised McPherson’s writing of Katniss’s character journey as “finely observed, even if the script occasionally labours under its own exposition.” He was also impressed by Carragher’s physical performance and her chemistry with Euan Garrett: “Garrett has an easy charm that plays nicely against Carragher’s guardedness.” Miriam Buether’s set impressed him as well: she knows how to combine cinematic scale with practical theatricality”, and he found the newly built theatre’s seating to be “a clever idea that might have felt gimmicky in lesser hands.” But he wished the play’s set and costume design didn’t borrow so heavily from the films. All in all, he found it a good attempt, but was left with a “lingering frustration that the show doesn’t quite decide what it wants to be, caught between introspection and bombast.”

Read the review here.

The Telegraph

”The adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s blockbuster novel lacks characterisation and coherence”

★★

Like other critics, Claire Allfree also wondered whether The Hunger Games is a story that was ever meant to be on stage, and called this stage show a “depressingly bad adaptation”, which “fails to reimagine and revitalise its source material” and doesn’t “properly critique the queasy subject matter.” She felt Carragher wasn’t given much to do outside of action sequence, as “McPherson’s heavily emotive-by-numbers script rarely allows her to reveal a specific inner life.” Like Alex Wood, she was critical of how much “the replica score and abundance of recycled visual motifs” borrowed from the films. She concluded, “The staging is aptly gladiatorial but fatally lacking in intimacy.”

Read the review here.

The set of THE HUNGER GAMES ON STAGE. Photo by Johan Perrson.

The Times

”Welcome to the Humdrum Games

★★

Clive Davis felt “the young cast members give it their all”, but despite that, the show “has an oddly underpowered air”. He thought the in-the-round arena looked impressive, but ultimately the creative team “struggles to fill it with enough spectacle”. Like other critics, he did not connect with that way McPherson’s script forced Carragher to “narrate much of the story while sprinting here and there.” He did praise the cast: “Euan Garrett wins our sympathy as Katniss’s comrade Peeta, while Stavros Demetraki camps it up as Caesar Flickerman.” He concluded that while there’s “enough of a fanbase to keep this venture running”, he suspected that die-hard fans will be disappointed by this adaptation.

Read the review here.

The Financial Times

”Pulsates with energy but lacks a beating heart”

★★

Sarah Hemming thought the show didn’t hit as hard emotionally as it should have given the content of the story. She found that the script “never quite achieves that unique, independent dramatic life." Carragher was a “charismatic, spirited Katniss”, but was disadvantaged by the use of first-person narrative. She did find that the show “makes spectacular use of the scope of the arena”, but “there are also some strangely redundant dance sequences and confusing plot twists.” All in all, she concluded, “there’s little emotional impact."

Read the review here.

The i Paper

“The Hunger Games stage show gets everything wrong”

★★

Fiona Mountford was decidedly unimpressed. Comparing it to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which brought to the stage a brand-new story, she felt The Hunger Games “has the disadvantage of attempting to retell events that have already been made iconic” and “finds no innovative ways to re-engage with the source material.” She noted that Dunster and McPherson took a “less-is-more attitude for their version, opting to allow audience imagination to do its fair share of heavy lifting”, but this creative decision felt at odds with the purpose-built arena housing the show, which had “startlingly little impact”. She did, however, praise “the energy, stamina and athleticism of the performers”, though she found “McPherson’s bewilderingly clunky script” had too much exposition for Carragher to do justice to.

Read the review here.

The Hunger Games On Stage is booking until October 2026, so you have plenty of time to see if it lives up to the hype of the books and films we all fell in love with. And if you want to see more theatre shows inspired by beloved franchises, check out our list of Screen to Stage Adaptations in the West End.