Million Dollar Quartet is rocking the West End until December
In partnership with Million Dollar Quartet
By Dale Fox
On the afternoon of 4 December 1956, Carl Perkins walked into Sun Records in Memphis to record a new version of ‘Matchbox’, backed by his brothers Clayton and Jay and drummer W.S. Holland.
Sam Phillips, who ran the label, had brought in a local piano player barely known outside the city, Jerry Lee Lewis. Elvis Presley, by then signed to RCA Victor, dropped by to hear the playback with his girlfriend. Johnny Cash turned up too, though accounts of exactly when he left still differ.
What followed was an unplanned singalong through the gospel, country, pop and R&B songs the four men had grown up on. Seventy years later, the musical built around that single afternoon is back in London. Million Dollar Quartet has transferred to The Arts at Marble Arch for a strictly limited season, following an extended summer run at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester.
The show will head on to a UK and Ireland tour in 2027 , kicking off in Dublin on 20 January.
Featuring songs that either emerged from that session or had already made the reputations of the men in the room, including ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, ‘Great Balls of Fire’, ‘I Walk the Line’ and ‘Hound Dog’, the show restages that single afternoon inside Sun Records, with a live band playing throughout.
How the Million Dollar Quartet got its name
Phillips was excited enough by what he was hearing that he called the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Entertainment editor Bob Johnson arrived with a UPI reporter and a photographer, and his story ran the next day under the headline “Million Dollar Quartet.” Johnson described the session as “an old fashioned barrel-house session with barber shop harmonies resulting.”
The tape kept running throughout, though not everything survived. The reels were later partly lost and rediscovered, and selections eventually reached record shops: a 17-track European release in 1981, a fuller two-LP set in 1987, and an RCA edition in the US in 1990.
A 50th-anniversary release in 2006 restored the recordings to their original running order, with producer Ernst Jorgensen estimating it captured around 95 per cent of what was recorded that afternoon. Cash, Lewis and Perkins went on to reunite several times, including for 1985’s Class of ’55 session with Roy Orbison, but the four men were never recorded together again in a studio.
Darren Day leads the West End transfer
Darren Day, whose stage and screen credits include Hollyoaks, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Chicago, reprises Sam Phillips from the Barn Theatre production. Connor Payne plays Elvis Presley, Christopher Erasmus plays Johnny Cash, Joe Bence plays Jerry Lee Lewis and Joey Bradick plays Carl Perkins, alongside Jenay Naima as Dyanne, Geraint Downing as Perkins’ brother Jay and Josh Haberfield as drummer W.S. “Fluke” Holland.
Jonathan O’Boyle directs, with choreography by Joanna Goodwin, set and costume design by Libby Watson, lighting by Alex Musgrave and sound by Nick Lodge. The entire company transfers from the Barn Theatre’s extended summer season in Cirencester, brought to London as part of the venue’s “Built By Barn” initiative, which develops shows before moving them to wider audiences.
“This company has blown away audiences at the Barn,” said Barn CEO and artistic director Iwan Lewis when the transfer was announced. “Now it’s London’s turn.”
What the critics are saying
Reviews since the London opening have been positive. Theatre Weekly, giving the production four stars, called it “a celebration of rock ‘n’ roll history” and credited Day with bringing “a natural ease” to Sam Phillips, anchoring the show “with confidence and warmth.” Joe Bence, as Jerry Lee Lewis, came in for praise as “consistently electrifying.”
Musical Theatre Review also gave four stars, finding that “audiences are sent home on an invigorated high.” The Upcoming, on the same rating, praised “wonderful deliveries of some of the most famous hit songs from the 50s.”
How to book tickets
Million Dollar Quartet is playing at The Arts at Marble Arch, the West End venue powered by TodayTix, until 6 December 2026, having opened on 4 September. With the run strictly limited, early booking is recommended.