Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical is big on heart, full of hits, and unafraid to get real
The idea of a Live Aid musical feels like it could go either way. It’s easy to imagine it becoming just another 80s jukebox show coasting on nostalgia. But Just For One Day, now playing at the Shaftesbury Theatre, somehow does something more, something better. It manages to honour the chaos, the mission, and the sheer cultural impact of Live Aid without ever feeling like a tribute band in stage form.
Yes, it’s packed with anthems. From In the Air Tonight and Heroes to Radio Ga Ga and Vienna, the band—perched above the main stage absolutely rips through each number. But unlike other jukebox musicals, this one has a strange, blurry edge. Because the songs aren’t just chart-toppers they were, in some cases, written about the very crisis the show’s narrative tackles. Do They Know It’s Christmas? lands differently when set against scenes of famine and political failure. That dissonance makes the show more interesting, more reflective. It asks the audience to feel and think.
The show’s framing device a kind of flashback tour through the buildup to Live Aid is a clever touch. We meet “Mr G” (Bob Geldof) and “Mrs T” (Margaret Thatcher) and a whole spectrum of people pulled into the momentum of the moment. Craig Els plays Geldof with real nuance. He’s not just “sweary Bob,” though that part’s very much present and correct. Instead, we get a layered, thoughtful portrayal of someone both driven and unsure, passionate and exhausted.
Julie Atherton’s take on Thatcher is sharply drawn, landing somewhere between satire and sincerity, and she pulls off a tough balancing act with style. But it’s Kelly Agbowu’s Marsha who truly hits hardest. As a care worker in Africa, her fury, disbelief, and determination ground the musical in the reality Live Aid was trying to respond to. When she sings Blowin’ in the Wind, it’s not just a moment. It’s a thunderclap. With the band rolling beneath her and the LED screens bathed in nothing but a stark orange glow to evoke the dry plains of Ethiopia, the moment lands hard. There’s no need for literal imagery, just that relentless wash of colour says everything. It captures the weight of hopelessness from the time, but also the fragile thread of hope trying to break through. It becomes the emotional apex of the show.
The staging is smart and minimal, using LED screens and lighting to do much of the heavy lifting. It never tries to recreate Wembley Stadium in full, and it doesn’t need to. It relies instead on suggestion, rhythm, and feeling—and it works.
The finale, Let It Be, is the rousing, emotional gut punch you’d hope for. But this show doesn’t coast on sentimentality. It’s well-structured, occasionally sharp-edged, and never loses sight of what Live Aid was really about: impact, change, urgency.
At this performance, we were treated to an appearance by Sir Bob Geldof himself, who joined the cast on stage for an impassioned fifteen-minute speech. It wasn’t rehearsed or slick. It was real. And it reminded everyone in the theatre why the story matters not just as a piece of music history, but as a living call to action.
You don’t need to remember Live Aid to be moved by this show. You just need to remember that, even now, music can still mean something. Just For One Day proves that,with heart, honesty, and one hell of a soundtrack.
And on a final note: we don’t believe for one moment that George Ure, who plays Midge Ure, isn’t related. He looks like him. He sounds like him. Frankly, we want to see the birth certificate.
