Blur vs Oasis: Britpop’s biggest feud hits the stage in new comedy The Battle

The iconic summer of 1995 is set to be relived on stage as The Battle — a razor-sharp new play about the infamous Britpop feud between Oasis and Blur — rolls into Manchester’s Opera House from March 17th- 21st, 2026.

Written by music industry insider turned novelist and screenwriter John Niven (Kill Your Friends, O’Brother), and directed by Matthew Dunster (2:22 A Ghost Story), The Battle captures the chaos, rivalry and culture clash that defined an era when British music didn’t just top the charts — it dominated the headlines.

At the centre of it all was a showdown that split the nation.

The Battle comes to Manchester’s Opera House

On Monday 14th August 1995, Blur’s Country House and Oasis’s Roll With It were released on the same day.

Blur were the polished art-school southerners fronted by Damon Albarn. Oasis, the swaggering working-class brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher from Manchester.

What unfolded was more than a chart battle — it was a social war.

Fans were forced to pick sides, friendships were tested, and even couples reportedly broke up over whether they were Team Blur or Team Oasis.

Producer Simon Friend, speaking to Deadline in 2024, said the extraordinary depth of feeling surrounding the clash was ripe for theatrical treatment: “You had couples breaking up over it, there was a lot of family strife and other crazy stuff. It was quite extraordinary just how deep into the zeitgeist it managed to reach… you had to be one or the other.”

The Battle of Britpop

Niven, an author who once played in a band himself and later worked as an A&R man, told NME that writing for the stage was a first: “1995: a time long before music splintered into a billion different TikTok feeds. When music was so central to the culture that two pop groups could dominate the entire summer, the evening news and the front page of every newspaper in the country. We’re going to take you back there.”

The class conflict at the heart of the Oasis vs Blur saga is not lost in the staging. Blur were often seen as middle-class Londoners from Chelsea; Oasis, the gritty upstarts from Manchester.

The bands mirrored the North-South divide and the tribalism of British pop culture — a dynamic which Friend believes lends itself perfectly to drama.

“They were from different ends of the country, and they’d arrived on the scene at the same time,” Niven noted. “You can have no clearer cut way to show [who’s bigger] than the top 10 charts.”

Though The Battle is not officially sanctioned by either band — “We want to tell an honest story,” said Simon Friend — it promises an authentic, unsanitised account of the rivalry, drawing from real-life encounters, backstage spats, and the tabloid frenzy that surrounded it all.

“an authentic, unsanitised account of the Blur vs Oasis battle”

The Manchester dates are part of a UK-wide tour kicking off in Birmingham in February and concluding in Chester in August.

For Manchester fans, the production is especially poignant — this is Oasis territory, after all.

Expect plenty of cheeky nods, regional pride, and a home crowd that knows exactly whose side they’re on.

As Friend sums it up: “This is a comedy with teeth.”

Tickets are expected to sell fast — whether you’re a Blur fan, an Oasis die-hard, or just love a bit of 90s nostalgia, you won’t want to miss this.

Tickets for The Battle at Manchester’s Opera House

The Battle plays the Manchester Opera House from March 17th to 21st, 2026.

You can get tickets here