There’s a certain kind of theatre news that makes you sit up a little straighter, and this is one of them. Matilda The Musical is returning to Australian stages in 2027, a decade on from the last time Roald Dahl’s fierce little heroine had us all cheering from the stalls.
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production will open at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre in October 2027, then make its way to the Sydney Lyric and QPAC’s Lyric Theatre in Brisbane. If you were lucky enough to catch the original Australian tour between 2015 and 2017, you’ll remember what a phenomenon it was. More than one million theatregoers showed up, houses sold out for over two years straight, and in 2016 the show swept every musical category at the Helpmann Awards, taking home a record 13 in total. It remains the most awarded musical in Australian theatrical history.
That kind of reception doesn’t happen by accident. Matilda has now been running in London’s West End for 15 years, making it the 10th longest running musical in West End history, and worldwide it has picked up 101 international awards (25 of them for Best Musical) and been seen by more than 13 million people across over 100 cities. Somewhere in there is also the Netflix film adaptation, made by the same creative team, which introduced Matilda to an entirely new generation without them ever having to set foot in a theatre.
For anyone who hasn’t met her yet, Matilda Wormwood is a small girl with an enormous imagination and an even bigger spine. She reads everything she can get her hands on, refuses to be talked down to, and takes on injustice with a kind of quiet, unstoppable courage. It’s a story about how much power a child can have when they decide to use their voice, wrapped in Tim Minchin’s sharp, funny, genuinely moving songs.
Minchin, who wrote the music and lyrics, put it best himself, calling the original 2015 to 2017 tour “a genuinely world class production to rival the West End version” and saying he’s thrilled that “a whole new batch of incredible Aussie performers and crew and craftspeople” will get to bring it to life for audiences all over again.
Producer Louise Withers, who is bringing the show back alongside Michael Coppel and Linda Bewick, described it as a chance to celebrate one of the most treasured musicals ever staged in Australia while introducing it to people who have never seen it. As she put it, every generation seems to find something different in Matilda. Kids see possibility. Adults rediscover a bit of wonder. Families walk out having shared something together.
Ten years is a long time to wait for a second helping of pure joy, but if the first tour is anything to go by, this one will be worth it.
If you want to be first in line when tickets go on sale, you can join the waitlist now for priority booking information and updates on the 2027 Australian season.
