Lyn Gardner

Merlin has performed the play in the US and Europe, and a filmed version was shown at a meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 2024. The occasion forced Merlin to confront her own relationship to Tilly’s story. 'The moderator of the event asked me, "What's your connection to the material?

Published on 6 July 2026 Heathers is the cult musical that refuses to fade away. First seen in the West End in 2018, it returns again to London, this time playing at the new venue The Arts at Marble Arch. Clearly, like a lot of theatre at the moment, it has a fanbase from the 1988 movie, and it plays to that nostalgia, but it has also secured a genuine teenage fanbase for the show, so it cuts across the generations.

She would indeed like to run another theatre at some point in the future but says she loves the freedom of being a freelancer but adds, "You catch me at a moment when I am thinking hard about my next steps.” She is taking a well-earned break after Shifters, although she has projects and collaborations in the pipeline, including one with Giles Terera. “I think it’s always important every now and again to reset and really ask yourself what you are doing and why.