LONDON — “Groundhog Day” is back, this time on stage. Is it deja vu, or something new?

A musical based on the much-loved 1993 movie about a jaded weatherman forced to live the same day over and over has opened at London’s Old Vic Theatre at the start of what producers hope will be a journey to Broadway.

Britain’s theater critics were largely enthusiastic Wednesday, the day after the show’s gala premiere, praising its zany fun and dynamic theatricality, and hailing star Andy Karl as a worthy successor to the movie’s leading man, Bill Murray.

Ann Treneman in The Times of London said the show “manages to couple laugh-out-loud British humor with American razzmatazz.” The Guardian’s Michael Billington found it “fantastically smart, clever and witty,” though he said “it left my heart untouched.”

Dominic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph called the show “an instant classic … equal to, and perhaps better than, the movie.”

The musical’s script is by Danny Rubin, who co-wrote the film and keeps it faithful to the spirit of the original. Composer-lyricist Tim Minchin and director Matthew Warchus are the team behind “Matilda The Musical,” the Roald Dahlinspired show that won seven Olivier Awards and four Tonys.

Like “Matilda,” it’s a bold, clever mix of cynicism and optimism, both tart and tender.

Pittsburgh weatherman Phil Connors (Karl) is less than thrilled to be spending Feb. 2 in small-town Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, covering its famous weather-forecasting rodent – or, as Phil puts it, “talking to hicks about magical beavers.”

First he is trapped by a blizzard, then by some sort of karmic revenge: He wakes every morning to find that it is, once again, Groundhog Day.

Phil’s shock gives way first to hedonism and then to despair, as he realizes he is essentially immortal. One disturbing number shows his many and varied attempts to kill himself – gun, knife, toaster in the shower. After each death he awakes as though nothing has happened.

But while it flirts with the abyss, the show is often funny, and ultimately redemptive. Phil emerges transformed, like Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” – in this case by being shown the ghost of eternal present.