Even for a novel that lives as consistently as the big Gatsby, it was a big year for Fitzgerald’s Classic. His 100th anniversary marked its 100th anniversary in 2025, and there was a rush of new biographies and new editions and articles, and of course a London stage musical was a triumph on the west end, a dazzling spectacle in the Colosseum, which captures the history of jazz age as a timeless story of romance, money and human longing for somewhat unsurpassed age.
The show is approaching the little hours of its run, but there is still life in the party, with two of the leads – the musical hot property Jamie Muscato, who plays Gatsby and Corbin Bleu, plays Nick Carraway after being the same on Broadway – in fine fat when the standard aroused. You can really only catch the actors when they are deep into a relentless run like this, Bleu on the way through the theater between the rehearsals and Jamie who press into a café to get into his iron slat.
“The role is so that I can do something else every day,” says Muscato, playing the slippery Gatsby: “It always feels fresh. Everyone has fun. I really like to work with all these amazing actors on stage because you never know what they are preserved.
Ah yes: 100 shows! But if you put together the show after the show every day, it flies over. It probably requires an absolute focus and commitment, with the personal hyper knowledge of an athlete or a monk to protect voice and body …
“Um, I mean, I should probably, but I just came back in Glastonbury,” laughs Muscato, “I came back to the show, which I thought was quite difficult, but because it is now built into my body, it was actually a lot of fun!”
Jamie Muscato & Frances Mayli McCann in the Great Gatsby (Johan Persson)
Bleu is similar with Gatsby Life. I am surrounded by a great line -up and can change according to the intention of a person that night. This is really cool and can feel like a piece than a musical. I am very happy that this is my west end debut. “
Bleus Carraway is of course the narrator of this story, the wannabe -new York bond dealer, who, in addition to the manor house of Jay Gatsby, a flash, but mysterious figure, which throws wild parties -possibly through gangster shops in this age of the ban in a cottage on Long Island. They are on the new money side of the noise in the West egg, but above the water is Ostei, where Daisy Buchanan, Carraway’s cousin, lives with her husband Tom. Gatsby put goose sheets on trial before the war, and all parties he throws are for them … and the rest is everything intrigue, cheerfulness, romance, lust and tragedy.
The show brings the story into living life with large numbers, spectacular sentences and an amazingly effective action, but for Bleu everything comes back to the text: “The show is very opulent, it is a feast for the eyes in relation to the sets and costumes and special effects, but all of this without actual stories is only attracted.”
In fact, everything is really character for all turns of the action, since Jay Gatsby’s puzzle is never solved.
Muscato explains some of the background story of the character: “He was a poor boy, from a not very nice family, he didn’t get along with his parents, and when he was 17, he saved this rich guy on his boat, and the rich guy took him under his wings. Jay saw this man who had ever had everything he had ever dreamed.
A little later in his life he would go to war and there was a big dance before they started. He met this girl named Daisy and absolutely fell in love with her. He went to war and went for 5 years. He returns to her life than this enigmatic millionaire on the wrong side of the tracks. They are supposed to flood these huge parties so that he can meet them very naturally, except that it is the planned plan that everyone has ever planned.
Corbin Bleu, Rachel Tucker & Jon Robyns in the Great Gatsby West End (Johan Persson)
They fall in love and then things fall apart when his background story is discovered by Daisy’s husband. It is a really strange love story in which nobody is completely good and nobody gets what he really wants in the end. “
Bleu has been fascinated by this story since childhood and remains one of his true passions.
“I think it was in the middle school when I read it for the first time and I was obsessed with it,” he says, “so much that I was actually given an original publication on my 18th birthday. I still have it. It is one of my pricing.
It is a story about Star Crossed lovers, but it is also about lessons and persecution of what is impossible due to your birth. Although it does not necessarily end, I think that it is ultimately a warning of money that does not bring luck, because even our villains, who go away without consistency, ultimately go away unhappily.
And it’s not about the goal, it’s about the trip, and you can’t say that Gatsby’s life was not a fantastic journey. “
One of the innovations of the musical is to bring out the homo-erotic implications in history that feels like an important new attitude.
Bleu says: “Nick’s relationship with Gatsby is one of the most spoken things: how does Nick actually feel about Gatsby? In the novel there is a half -sexual obsession with him. It is only indicated, but it is something that, how we continued the show, really tried to implement more and more. I wanted my nick definitely to have a love and instruction for him.
This is one of the most fascinating things on the live theater how production can develop over time and can develop new topics so that an audience can see a show at two different points and leave completely different experiences and impressions.
No wonder that the actors feel a constant rush over more than 100 shows when they wrestle an impact on form. The “Plaza scene” in act two is your favorite for both Bleu and Muscato, as it is the most flexible and unpredictable scene.
“It is a scene towards the end, in which Tom finally tells Gatsby that he knows that he is a boot legger,” says Muscato, “I love the change of power through this scene. Jay goes into the scene with all the power. Gatsby is completely defeated.
“They all have their main actors in this scene,” says Bleu, “and every night it is different and it depends on how heated the argument can get. In a few nights it comes to the point where you can see that it is almost violent. These are my favorite nights. On the verge of violence!”
And with this, both have to go back to the 1920s to Gatsby World back into immortal history, which is always read and discussed and confused – but above all, people will always move with their existential tragedy.
Jamie Muscato in the Great Gatsby (Johan Persson)
Even Muscato says: “I don’t know who Gatsby is. I know what I think, but there is something about the story and about Jay Gatsby, which is only endlessly fascinating, something that can never be solved.
Did he rub me off? Probably to a certain extent. I think as an actor it is a certain facade in what I do. And when I talk to you, I try to put on the best version of myself. So there is this kind of handicrafts that I think everyone shares and definitely every actor. He is just a man who tries to make a dream come true, and I think we can all refer to it. “
The big gatsby is at The London Coliseum Until September 7th