Review: BIFF TO THE FUTURE at Wilton’s Music Hall

Date: 20/04/26

Stars: 4

Before anything really gets going, you’re already clocking the details – the hoverboard, the cap, the Hill Valley bits dotted around, the Enchantment Under the Sea school dance sign… it’s the kind of setup where you end up scanning the stage trying to find what else has been hidden in here. And that’s a great way in, because it immediately tells you Biff to the Future isn’t just throwing a few references around and hoping for the best, and that someone’s actually thought about it.

That someone is writer and performer Joseph Maudsley, who takes the audience on a journey back to the future and into the past and round about again, essentially re-telling the story of the Back to the Future franchise, but from Biff Tannen’s point of view.

The Biff angle could have gone either way, but it actually works – he’s so clearly the villain in Back to the Future that you don’t really question him when you’re watching the films, so flipping it and asking what all that timeline chaos looks like from his side is a genuinely interesting idea. And it feels like a proper story rather than a string of “remember this bit?” moments, which it could have easily fallen into. That’s what makes Biff to the Future stand out – it could, with a little more exposition (thank you for your service, Clock Tower Lady), become its own story entirely.

In this timeline, the show does rely on you knowing the films though, and I don’t think there’s any way around that. If you’ve seen all three, you’re fine, you’ll follow it easily and probably catch a lot more of the smaller references. If you haven’t, I think you’d spend quite a bit of time trying to work out what’s going on. But then, it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to cater for that, it’s very much for people who already know the world.

Comedy-wise, if delivers proper laughs, not just the odd chuckle, and it mixes the obvious stuff with some deeper cuts, which keeps it from feeling predictable. You get the big recognisable moments, but then there are little lines or details that catch you slightly off guard, especially if you’ve seen the films more times than you’d like to admit.

Joseph Maudsley does everything, which sounds like a lot, and it is, but he makes it feel quite easy. Biff being likeable is a bit of a surprise, because that’s not how you’re used to seeing him, but it works here – you end up going along with it, and by the end you’re kind of on his side, which is… strange, but also quite fun. There’s even a bit of a message in there, which you don’t really expect, but it doesn’t feel like it’s been dropped in just to tick a box.

All the other characters come and go through quick changes, props, bits of costume, and it’s just enough; you don’t need full transformations, you recognise who’s who almost instantly, and that’s all it needs. It’s quite scrappy, but in a way that feels deliberate, like it knows exactly how much to do and when to stop.

It does get a bit chaotic in places, but it never completely loses where it’s going – there’s always something to follow, even when it feels like it’s about to tip over into nonsense. The audience participation helps with that as well, giving it a bit of unpredictability. Someone getting up and going full Marty McFly on an air guitar wasn’t something I expected, but I’m not complaining.

And it moves too. It’s seventy minutes, no interval, and it’s done before you’ve really had time to sit back, which feels right for this kind of show, anything longer and it might start to wear thin.

It sits somewhere between parody and tribute, and that only really works if the people behind it actually care about what they’re referencing. Here, you can tell they do, and that’s probably why it holds together as well as it does.

Biff to the Future runs at Wilton’s Music Hall until 25th April, and then continues touring. You can find more details at www.bifftothefuture.com.