When a beloved novel arrives on stage, the question is always the same, what can theatre add that the page or the screen cannot? With One Day, The Musical, adapted from the best-selling novel by David Nicholls with book by David Greig and music and lyrics by Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano Ramirez, the answer lies not only in performance but in space itself.
When I go to see a musical, I am essentially judging three things, the story, the staging, and the performances. In other words, what is said, how the piece is physically realised, and how convincingly the cast bring it all to life. In this case, all three come remarkably close to full marks.
David Greig’s script adaptation works remarkably well, keeping the structure of the original story while translating its episodic nature to the stage, with plenty of laughs and a remarkable ability not to lapse into sentimentality. As in the novel, the audience follows Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew on the same date each year after their graduation night in Edinburgh. It is a story about timing, missed opportunities, and the quiet realisation that the person who matters most may have been standing beside you all along.
At the centre are Jamie Muscato as Dexter and Sharon Rose as Emma. Muscato’s Dexter leans deliberately into the Hugh Grant tradition, foppish, handsome, and just this side of a lovable twit. It is a performance full of charm but with enough fragility beneath the surface to give the character weight. Muscato also happens to possess a superb voice, which carries the score with ease. Rose’s Emma provides the emotional anchor of the piece, wry, intelligent, and grounded, giving the story its heart.
The chemistry between the pair and indeed the whole company is evident throughout. This is an ensemble that clearly works well together, and the result is a production that feels confident and assured.
Musically, the score sits comfortably in contemporary folk pop territory rather than traditional show stopping Broadway bombast. The songs are effective and well delivered, though perhaps without a single number that leaps instantly into the memory. Still, under the musical direction of Nigel Lilley, the band provides a rich and polished accompaniment that supports the drama rather than overwhelming it.
But if the performances and writing are strong, the staging is where this production truly becomes extraordinary.
Architecturally speaking, it is one of the most ambitious theatrical transformations I have ever seen. The auditorium of the beloved old Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh has been almost entirely reconfigured. In roughly six weeks of continuous work, the traditional layout has been turned on its head. A new stage has been built over where the stalls would normally sit, and with a bank of steeply raked seating now behind the new stage creating theatre in the round. With Seating now existing both in front of and behind the proscenium arch, there is a curious mirroring or ‘yang and yang’ effect which sits well with the bilateral themes within the performance. Very clever. New raised boxes have also been constructed for the band and technical teams.
None of this is straightforward. Transforming a historic theatre in this way requires a delicate balance between innovation and respect for the building’s character. The decoration and detailing is all carefully and lovingly thought out and the result remains sympathetic to the architecture, which makes the intervention all the more impressive.
The effect is strikingly intimate. Audience members can even purchase seats directly on the stage itself in what feels rather like a jazz club arrangement. The result is a deliberate blurring of boundaries, between audience and performer, between stage and auditorium, even between spectator and participant.
It works beautifully.
One particularly elegant touch reinforces the show’s central theme of time passing. Each year in the story is marked by a sequence of lights around the proscenium arch. These illuminate in order until reaching the date displayed above the stage, visually charting the march of time. It is simple, clever, and theatrically effective.
Of course, there is an element of risk in a production on this scale. The physical transformation alone represents a significant investment. Yet basing the show on a bestselling novel set in Edinburgh itself undoubtedly helps. The story already has a devoted audience, and advance ticket sales would have provided some reassurance.
Still, it is rare to see a theatre quite so boldly reinvented for a single production.
In the end, what makes One Day, The Musical succeed is the way all three elements, story, staging, and performance, work together. The story’s intimacy is reflected in the architecture of the space, the performances feel natural within that environment, and the audience becomes part of the world being created.
The result is a theatrical experience that feels both inventive and emotionally grounded, an unusually successful meeting of storytelling, music, and architecture. Top marks from me.
Playing until 19th April, https://lyceum.org.uk/
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 11th March 2026
North West End UK Rating:
Running time – 3hrs (with Interval)
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