Stereophonic – Duke of York’s Theatre

Eli Gelb and Andrew R Butler in Stereophonic at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London. Picture: Marc Brenner 

Stereophonic continues at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London until 11 October 2025.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

In the 1970s when folk rock was at its height, nobody quite ruled the roost as much as the Anglo-American group Fleetwood Mac did. Their album Rumours is rightly regarded as a masterpiece, but its production was plagued by recording sessions that were disrupted by heavy drug use and the turbulent romantic lives of its members, which included two couples that by production’s end were not talking to one another.

The band at the heart of Stereophonic, now transferring to the West End after it garnered the most Tony Award nominations for a play in the awards’ history, is not Fleetwood Mac. Well, not officially, anyway. The fact that they’re an Anglo-American band with two warring couples and whose members freely partake in hard drugs is, of course, a complete coincidence. So to is the fact that the recording sessions at the heart of David Adjmi’s drama largely take place in Sausalito, which just so happens to be where the majority of Rumours was recorded.

So even if the events within Stereophonic are fictionalised, there is a strong vein of truth coursing through the play. Fleetwood Mac were, of course, far from the only band of the era for whom narcotics and break-ups were a constituent of their daily lives. But the parallels are blatant here, encouraged by the songs the band are recording throughout the play.

To characterise Academy Award-nominated Will Butler’s (formerly of Arcade Fire) songs as pastiches of Rumours’ classic tracks would do him a severe disservice. The songs are perfectly crafted, and feel genuinely like they were born in the same era. Numbers such as ‘Masquerade’ and ‘Drive’ could turn up on Radio 2’s Sounds of the 70s and only connoisseurs of the era would be able to tell the difference.

For all the musical majesty, though, it is the people who are the focus of Adjmi’s script. And truth be told it takes a while to warm to any of the musicians. We join them as they are about to wrap up a recording session, only as they discover that their last album has become such a hit that their record company has given them an open-ended schedule and blank cheque to get their next album right. The band members are already getting on each other’s nerves, even before they are forced to spend more time together, and from the outset we are plunged into that same tension.

And then the drugs come out, which historically have hardly ever made people who were unbearable to begin with become more tolerable. Adjmi takes his sweet time moving the story along, choosing to wallow in the self-inflicted misery the band is creating for itself. This is not a play that assumes that the audience is capable of understanding nuance: every tension is set up and ably played with actors imbuing every line with subtext, only for the script to follow that up with the text.

It’s a slow, at times tortuous, move through a multi-month nightmare of a recording session that occasionally feels as if it is playing out in real time. At times, the only relief comes from the two sound engineers, witnesses to the mania going on around them and always trying (not always successfully) to get drawn in.

Andrew R Butler provides largely comic relief as Charlie, the engineer that none of the band ever seem to know by name, but it is Eli Gelb’s Grover that becomes the heart of the piece. Initially scared that the band will discover he lied on his CV about his experience, Grover’s growth in confidence even as he is surrounded by cocaine-fuelled egos is one of the play’s quiet triumphs.

As Simon, the normally unflappable drummer, Chris Stack is at first one of the most likeable of the group, making the moments when he, too, explodes with rage in the recording studio all the more powerful. Similarly, Nia Towle’s Holly feels the most angelic of the group but has her moments when standing up for her own opinion makes her feel painted as strident in ways the men never do when they do the same, or worse.

And that dual standard is embodied nowhere better than in the relationship between Jack Riddiford’s Peter, who takes the role of the record’s producer upon himself, and his partner Diana (Lucy Karczewski).

The latter starts off as an annoying hanger-on, a talented singer but who is frustrated at being relegated to the tambourine, triangle or, worse, waving her hands around when the band performs live. As she begins to flex her songwriting abilities, Peter’s dismissive denigration of her contributions is rooted in layers upon layers of chauvinism and male insecurity.

The term “coercive control” may not have been in usage in the mid 1970s, but the relationship between Peter and Diana exemplifies that. Peter’s attempts to belittle his partner, to ensure that she never grows strong or independent enough to stop providing him with the things he wants, escalates slowly throughout the play. Once more, subtlety rarely comes into play – although in a climactic scene, as Diana and Peter have the argument to end all arguments in the soundproof studio, they move off stage, and we are left hearing the slow, whispered sense of threat from Riddiford, director Daniel Aukin ensuring that the scariest parts of that confrontation are imagined rather than witnessed.

It is ironic, perhaps, that one of the key topics of that couple’s fight is that Diana refuses to cut down one of her songs in order to make the album fit the limits of a vinyl pressing. Peter had previously claimed it as too long before it is improved by slowing it down; the way in which he belittles his wife forces her to stand up for her creative integrity.

In an attempt to placate her petulant partner, Diana suggests that if he were able to communicate and collaborate more, she may be more amenable to working within reasonable time limits. One wonders if Adjmi feels the same way. There is nothing about Stereophonic that feels like it really needs its post three-hour running time.

Just because the band’s – and Fleetwood Mac’s – recording sessions stretched out over months, it feels unfair to evoke the feeling that we have been along for the ride for every minute. In its long stretches of extraneous ennui, Stereophonic risks undoing what, when it is at full power, it succeeds in doing: acknowledging that the messiest of behind-the-scenes chaos can, just sometimes, produce sheer musical magic.

Scott Matthewman