Fourteen Again builds a new musical from the songs of Victoria Wood, and its London premiere at the Menier Chocolate Factory reunites three performers who worked with her: Sally Ann Triplett, Ria Jones and Neil Morrissey. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
Ten years after her death, Victoria Wood has a new show. Fourteen Again is not a revue or a tribute evening but a book musical, with a story written around her songs, and after a first run in the Lake District this spring it comes to the Menier Chocolate Factory from Saturday 21 November 2026 to Saturday 27 February 2027, with press night on Wednesday 2 December.
Who is starring in Fourteen Again?
Sally Ann Triplett plays Peggy and Ria Jones plays Lou, the roles both created at the world premiere. Neil Morrissey joins them for London as Duncan. The understudies are Jayne Ashley and Matt Gillett.
The casting has an obvious thread running through it. Morrissey and Triplett were both in the company of Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, Wood's own show, when it played the Theatre Royal Haymarket, and Jones played it on its first UK tour. Jones also returns to the Menier after Habeas Corpus, and her credits include Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard at the London Coliseum. Morrissey is still best known on screen as Tony in Men Behaving Badly, and his West End credits also include The Crown Jewels at the Garrick Theatre.
Spotlight on Sally Ann Triplett
Triplett is one of the few performers who can say she worked inside Victoria Wood's own musical: she created Miss Berta in the original West End production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical!. Her stage career runs well beyond it. She won a WhatsOnStage Award for Anything Goes at the National Theatre and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, has played on Broadway in Finding Neverland and The Last Ship, and returns to the Menier, where she appeared in Take Flight. Peggy is a demanding part. She is newly divorced, adrift and, after one strange night, back inside her teenage self, so the role asks for comedy and a good deal of sadness in the same scenes, often within one song. Triplett has already played it once, at the world premiere, which counts for something in a part this exposed. Fourteen Again is booking now.
What is Fourteen Again about?
Peggy is recently divorced and drifting when she runs into Lou, her best friend from school, at a local slimming club. They have not seen each other since they were teenagers, when nobody could keep up with them; now both have faded a little. The reunion stirs up the past, and the next morning Peggy wakes to find she is fourteen years old again. Given a second look at her own history, she has to decide which mistakes are worth putting right and which made her who she is.
The songs are Wood's, and the title comes from one of her best-known numbers. Tom MacRae, who wrote Everybody's Talking About Jamie, wrote the book and additional lyrics, so this is a new piece rather than a compilation, with her music doing the work of the score.
Who is behind the production?
Jonathan O'Boyle directs. Nigel Lilley is musical supervisor, arranger and co-orchestrator, Archie McMorran musical director and co-orchestrator, and Sammy Murray the choreographer. The set is by Roger Glossop, costumes by Caroline Hughes, lighting by Jason Taylor, sound by Sam Glossop and video by Leo Flint. Matt Gillett is assistant director and choreographer, with Caroline Dalton as associate set designer and Harry Greatorex as associate sound designer.
The show exists because of two of Wood's closest friends and collaborators, the producer Charlotte Scott and the designer Roger Glossop. They asked MacRae to shape a musical from her songbook, and it opened this spring as the first production at the Victoria Wood Theatre in Bowness-on-Windermere, the former Old Laundry Theatre, renamed in her honour this year. Wood had opened that building, served as a trustee and performed there many times.
When and where can I see it?
Fourteen Again runs at the Menier Chocolate Factory in Southwark Street, a few minutes from London Bridge station, from Saturday 21 November 2026 to Saturday 27 February 2027. Press night is Wednesday 2 December.
The running time is about two hours including an interval, the show is recommended for ages 14 and over, and the venue does not allow latecomers in, so arrive in good time. Tickets currently start at £42 on our Fourteen Again page.
What else should I book if I like it?
- One Day follows a friendship across the years on the same date each year, now a musical at the Garrick Theatre from Tuesday 17 November 2026.
- MAMMA MIA! is the long-running proof that a story about old friends and a past that will not stay put works best with songs everyone knows, at the Novello Theatre.
- The Rise and Fall of Little Voice brings another northern comedy with music at its heart to the Dorfman Theatre at the National Theatre from Wednesday 2 December 2026.
- Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley is a warm-hearted festive comedy about a woman getting a second chance, at the Park Theatre from Wednesday 2 December 2026.
