Luke Evans, Elaine Paige and Mark Gatiss among guests at Chess opening night

It may be about the Cold War but the opening night of Chess was the hottest place to be last night, as the great and good of entertainment descended on London Coliseum for the musical's long-awaited revival.

Guests including Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beast), Beverley Knight (Memphis) and Mark Gatiss (Sherlock) joined an all-star cast that features Michael Ball, Alexandra Burke and Cassidy Janson, to celebrate the show's return to the West End.

Other guests at the opening night included original cast member Elaine Paige, Miss Saigon and Les Mis composer Claude-Michel Schönberg, and the newest member of the company Hamish Rex Howar – son of Tim Howar who plays Freddie Trumper and had to leave halfway through the first preview when his wife Jodie went into labour.

It's been over 30 years since Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice's musical was last seen in theatreland and it now returns in a new high tech production directed by Laurence Connor (Miss Saigon) and with choreography by Stephen Mear (Mary Poppins).

The show opened to mixed reviews with Mark Valencia praising the 'rafter-rocking' Michael Ball in his write-up for WhatsOnStage, while Tim Bano of The Stage proclaimed the production was 'a gross disservice to a great musical'.