George Maguire Cast as Jack Sparrow in London’s Immersive Pirates Adventure

Captain Jack Sparrow is heading for a new London stage — and this time, the audience will not be expected to stay put. Olivier winner George Maguire has been cast as Jack in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Immersive Adventure, a live production from Secret Cinema and TodayTix that uses the world of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl as the foundation for an interactive theatrical event.

The show’s approach matters as much as its casting. It is not being presented as a conventional movie screening with themed surroundings, nor as a standard proscenium play where viewers sit facing a stage. Instead, the production will combine selected film clips with live scenes, extensive sets, stunts and a live band. Across a reported two-hour experience, attendees will be able to move through the environments, encounter characters and participate in the unfolding story.

Previews are set to begin on Feb. 16, with the official opening planned for March 10. It will launch at Secret Cinema’s new riverside venue on the Greenwich Peninsula, its first production at a site the company intends to use as its permanent home. The run has already been extended by six weeks in response to demand.

A new Jack Sparrow for an immersive setting

Maguire’s casting puts an Olivier-winning musical-theatre performer at the centre of an event that depends on more than a close resemblance to a film character. He won his Olivier Award for playing Dave Davies in Sunny Afternoon, and his screen work includes EastEnders, Prime Suspect and Borgia.

That background is particularly relevant to the format. In an immersive production, a lead performer must sustain the character while responding to an environment that is less fixed than a traditional stage show. Audiences may encounter action from different positions and at different points in their own journey through the set. The performer’s job is still to tell a clear story, but it also involves making a large shared space feel inhabited rather than simply decorated.

The announced principal cast also includes Phil Daniels as Captain Barbossa, Lily Blunsom as Elizabeth Swann, Harrison Wilde as Will Turner and Gleanne Purcell-Brown as Anamaria. Additional casting is still to be revealed.

Daniels is known for work including Quadrophenia, EastEnders and Blur’s Parklife. His other film credits include Chicken Run and Scum, while Wicker, in which he appears with Olivia Colman, is due in 2026.

What “immersive” means here

“Immersive” is often used broadly for any entertainment experience with impressive scenery or audience interaction. Here, the term has a more concrete practical meaning: the show’s narrative will take place around its guests, who can roam the sets and meet the characters rather than watching every beat from one assigned seat.

That does not mean the evening abandons structure. The production will use selected footage from The Curse of the Black Pearl, but live storytelling is intended to be the primary driver. The clips appear to function as part of the adaptation’s toolkit, while actors, staged action and physical environments supply the central theatrical experience.

It is also a notable departure from Secret Cinema’s earlier film-led model. The company has previously built events around cinema titles, but this production is described as being led by its live narrative rather than by a complete screening. That distinction changes what ticket holders should expect: it is an adaptation that draws on a movie, not simply a communal viewing of that movie inside a lavishly themed venue.

For the franchise, it is described as the first fully immersive stage version. The focus on Tortuga gives the creative team a setting naturally suited to an open, populated environment: a place for sailors, pirates, tavern encounters and competing allegiances rather than a single, static location. Disney Theatrical Group has licensed the production, framing it as a new route into the franchise’s world through theatre and immersive storytelling.

The team building the pirate world

Matt Costain, another Olivier winner, directs. Behind the scenes, the production has assembled specialists across theatrical adaptation, design and physical staging:

Jason Sherwood, a two-time Emmy winner whose credits include the Oscars live broadcasts and Rent Live, is production designer.
Kait Kerrigan, who wrote the book for Broadway’s The Great Gatsby, is the theatrical adaptor.
Alan Williams, an Olivier winner, is responsible for music supervision, arrangements and orchestrations.
Stuart Burt serves as casting director.
Susan Kulkarni is costume designer.
Helen Keane of Campbell Young Associates handles wigs, hair and makeup design.
Alex Payne is fight director.

Those roles sketch out the scale of the challenge. A theatrical adaptor reshapes an existing screen story for live performance, deciding what can be retained, condensed or newly connected when the medium no longer has film editing and camera framing to guide attention. Orchestrations are the detailed arrangements assigning musical material across instruments and performers. In a show with a live band, they help determine how music supports scene changes, spectacle and character without simply recreating a film soundtrack.

The fight director’s role is equally central in a pirate story. Stage combat is choreographed for narrative clarity and performer safety, particularly where audience movement and large-scale scenery may alter the spatial demands of a scene. Stunts have been promised, but the specific nature of those sequences has not been detailed.

Why the venue launch is significant

The Greenwich Peninsula production is more than another stop for a touring attraction. It is the debut show for Secret Cinema’s new riverside home, which the company plans to retain as its base. A permanent venue can be important for an immersive format because it allows a production to be designed around a particular footprint, rather than being entirely reshaped for a temporary building or conventional theatre.

That is an inference from the decision to establish a home, not a confirmation of any particular design feature. No venue capacity, ticket pricing, accessibility details or audience instructions have been provided. But the setup signals a long-term commitment to staging large, environment-driven work rather than treating immersion as a one-off add-on.

Secret Cinema has now mounted more than 70 shows. Its earlier projects include Stranger Things, Guardians of the Galaxy: The Live Experience and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Since Merritt Baer took charge in 2024, it has also staged Grease: The Immersive Movie Musical, described as the company’s most successful production in 19 years. TodayTix acquired Secret Cinema in 2022.

For viewers tracking the wider overlap between screen franchises and live experiences, Disney-linked storytelling continues to stretch across formats; recent pop-culture discussion has also focused on how a Disney-connected screen story can reframe familiar characters and ideas. The London pirate production operates differently, of course: its ambition is not to extend an on-screen canon with an episode, but to let audiences physically enter an adapted version of a recognisable film world.

What audiences can reasonably expect

The confirmed details support a clear expectation: this will be a live, walk-through theatrical event with actors playing familiar Pirates of the Caribbean characters, rather than a full presentation of the original film. Guests can expect sets, encounters, action and music to form the core of the evening, with curated footage incorporated into the experience.

What remains unconfirmed is just as worth noting. There is no detailed route through the show, no indication of how much agency audience members will have over events, and no complete cast list yet. “Take part in the story” establishes an interactive element, but it does not specify whether participation will involve direct performance tasks, small group choices or more informal engagement with characters and environments.

For now, the biggest piece of the puzzle is Maguire’s Jack Sparrow. With Daniels’ Barbossa and the core Elizabeth, Will and Anamaria roles also filled, the production has set the major onstage ensemble for a move away from screen-only spectacle. The Black Pearl’s world is being rebuilt for London — with the crowd allowed off the dock and into the adventure.