Theatre review: Kiss of the Spiderwoman

A musical to rival Cabaret and Chicago

MAST Southampton

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Fabian Soto Pacheco, Anna-Jane Casey and George Blagden in Kiss of the Spiderwoman. Photo: Marc Brenner

John Kander and Fred Ebb are best known for writing Cabaret and Chicago. Their musical Kiss of the Spiderwoman is far less familiar. Adapted from the novel by Manuel Puig, it premiered in the West End in 1992 before transferring to Broadway in 1993 where it won seven Tony Awards including Best Musical. I can’t believe it’s not performed more often.The score, infused with evocative Latin rhythms, stirs deep emotions, while story is profoundly moving, not to mention harrowing. This co-production by Bristol Old Vic, Leicester Curve and Southampton MAST is tremendous.

This revival is far more intimate than the apparently spectacular premiere over thirty years ago. But no way is it a cut price version. The set entirely befits what is ultimately a love story. The setting is a prison cell in 1970s Argentina, shared by Valentin, a political prisoner, and Molina, a gay man.

These were dark times in that country. The growth of fascism shown in Cabaret is fully developed here, the celebrity prisoners of Chicago are now wretched victims of the governments of Juan Peron’s widow and the subsequent military junta of General Galtieri. Trades unionists, left wingers and gay people face imprisonment, torture or, notoriously, become The Disappeared.

Seeking refuge from the brutality of prison life, Molina, played by Fabian Soto Pacheco and wearing soft feminine garments, transports himself to his childhood memories of movies featuring a screen goddess called Aurora. As he recounts the plots of these films, the star materialises before us singing and dancing.

David Woodhead’s set brilliantly contrasts the austere greyness of the cell and its two narrow beds and floor to ceiling iron bars, with the colourful glamour of Aurora and her fabulous costumes, designed by Gabriella Slade. She appears as a mature woman, presumably reflecting a child’s perception of the movie star as much older than himself.

Anna-Jane Casey is charismatic in the role, commanding the stage with her swaggering dance and her seductive smile. Projected at the back of the stage are scenes from her black-and-white movies, cleverly created by Andrzej Goulding.

George Blagden delivers a compelling performance as Valentin. As an idealistic revolutionary, and a heterosexual, he is initially indifferent or even hostile to Molina but comes to value the escape into ‘beauty and love’, as the latter describes it. The movies and their songs become more meaningful to him than the ideological book by Karl Marx he keeps by him.

Both sing and act well. Molina is vulnerable and pragmatic, Valentin tough and principled. Although both remain attached to loved ones outside the prison walls, their love for each other grows, as both recognise and appreciate the strengths of the other. Inevitably we think of fluidity of gender and sexuality.

The prison authorities attempt to exploit this developing relationship to pressure Molina into extracting information about Valentin’s associates.

What follows is a gripping struggle within Molina between love and self preservation. Throughout, the movies (a metaphor for all art), not only provide escape from life but a blueprint for how to live

All the acting is top class but I’ll mention Jay Rincon as the cunning, sadistic Prison Warder. His chilling performance sends a shudder down the spine and makes the scenes of violence that much more believable.

This production, directed by Paul Foster, serves as a timely reminder to people like me who spend most of our time in London theatres that regional productions can be as artistically accomplished, emotionally powerful and theatrically thrilling as anything the capital has to offer.

Kiss of the Spiderwoman completes its short tour at The MAST Southampton on 6 June 2026.

Paul paid for his ticket.

Watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

May 26, 2026May 26, 2026

Theatre review: Paddington The Musical

Paddington Bear’s secret weapon that turns an ordinary musical into a great one

Savoy Theatre

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Paddington The Musical without Paddington would be just, well, The Musical. Then we’d notice that the plot, taken from the first film, is a bit flimsy. Tom Fletcher’s songs tend toward the generic. Some of the effects are a bit panto for a musical spectacular. But, transported on a wave of love for the little bear from Peru, the show is determined that you will be moved by its message of kindness, caring and tolerance. Forget any criticism, resistance is futile. You are overcome by a script from Jessica Swales that’s as sweet as marmalade.

Although tolerance is a theme of Michael Bond’s books, Paddington has become a focus for a kinder Britain. The bear is now a hymn to multicultural London and this tale of an illegal immigrant seems like a riposte to people who promote hate of those who simply seek a better life on our shores. ‘It doesn’t matter that he’s a different species’ declares Mr Brown. ‘Everyone is different, and everyone can fit in,’ says Paddington. I fear if the Reform Party forms a government, they’ll bring down the curtain!

It helps that the cast are so enthusiastic. They sell the show like chuggers in the high street. And then, there is the bear himself. A superbly conceived ‘skin’, as they say in theatrical circles when describing outfits that completely cover the actor. It’s a bit like the costumes they use in The Masked Singer but here Paddington is a perfect physical realisation of Peggy Fortnum‘s original drawings. Designed by Tahra Zafar, it is moved from within by an actual human (a brilliant Abbie Purvis on the night I saw it, but usually Arti Shah) with eye and mouth movements operated off stage by James Hameed who also provides his voice (and is occasionally seen on stage in strange meta moments). Between them, they make the bear as alive as any of the actors around him.

The Brown family are just what you expect. Adrian Der Gregorian is the risk averse but increasingly confident father and Amy Ellen Richardson the creative, rebellious mother. Bonnie Langford as the lodger Mrs Bird is astonishingly good, not only a musical legend with a powerful voice but still knocking out splits and high kicks at the age of 61. Victoria Hamilton-Barritt with a deeply reverberating voice is so frightening as Paddington’s would-be stuffer that I’ suspect younger children will be hiding under their seat. Teddy Kempner is a loveable Mr Gruber. Timi Akinyosade, Amy Booth-Steel, Tom Edden and Tarrin Callender all add to the fun.

Tom Pye‘s pretty set designs make clever use of projections which soak the stage in colourful images, and there are back projected drawings which remind us of Paddington’s literary origins. And Director Luke Sheppard keeps the whole thing moving at a pace, even if the final chase becomes a bit haphazard.

Paddington is an innocent creature who offers unconditional love and trust. What kind of cold-hearted cynic wouldn’t return that love, and take care of this bear?

Paddington The Musical can be seen at the Savoy Theatre in London’s West End. Paul advises booking at least six months in advance to obtain the best prices.
Paul paid for his ticket.

Watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

Click here to read a roundup of other critics’ reviews of Paddington The Musical

May 19, 2026May 20, 2026

Theatre review: Stage Kiss

Play within a play tickles both brain and funny bone

Ambassadors theatre

⭑⭑⭑⭑

Myanna Buring & Patrick Kennedy in Stage Kiss. Photo: Helen Murray

We start with an audition. It takes place under full house lights, so, before we think about hiding in the darkness and immersing ourselves in the play, we’re reminded we’re in a theatre, and the people on stage are all actors. Don’t worry, the lights soon go down. We find out the play is going to involve kissing. What we don’t realise at this point is the blurring of boundaries between actors pretending to kiss and actors pretending to be pretending to kiss. In the first act we watch rehearsals and part of the performance of a revival of an dreadful 1930s musical comedy. Since the stilted dialogue can only be performed in a pompous way, you could say it’s a meal of corn and ham.

The spoof of a Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn style screwball comedy is amusing and the mishaps of the rehearsals are genuinely funny. There’s a director played by Rolf Saxon who refuses to direct (‘Follow your instincts’ he says), props waiting to be tripped over, songs that burst out from nowhere. Having said that, it’s not in the class of the great behind-the-scenes farce Noises Off. In fact, I was getting a little bored with the theatrical in-jokes. Then it got a lot more interesting.

Stage Kiss is a clever comedy that delves into the nature of art. It turns out the two leads met years earlier and had a torrid affair, which is now reigniting, even as their characters in the play revive their earlier love. It is fascinating that what happens on stage becomes reality off stage, while conversely the actors’ real life affects their performance. The two leads are referred to as She and He, and the director as, well, The Director. Does this make them anonymous lumps of clay that authors and audiences can mould into whatever sculpture we like? Maybe. Certainly, both change as the evening progresses, as does the setting. At first Myanna Buring as She is a ditzy blonde, then she’s a dominating actor. then she’s a broken woman. Patrick Kennedy as He is passionate, then arrogant, then childish.

The author Sarah Ruhl is definitely toying with the confusion between art and life. We are after all watching actors in a play pretending to be pretending to be kissing. At one point I was thinking He went off with She’s daughter in real life until I remembered that happened in the first play within the play.

In the second act, the two actors are living together and get involved in another not terribly good play this time set in the gritty 1970s but with dialogue to match that seems implausible to today’s ears. Once again the cast are convincing at being unconvincing. A more aggressive relationship in the play reflects the lovers’ new real life issues. It’s all very meta theatre.

The kiss is key, because, while the two plays-within-a-play are awful, the kisses between He and She within them appear to be what we might call in the context real. This is made clear when the under-talented understudy, a delightfully goofy performance by James Phoon, tries to kiss She and looks like a python about to devour its victim. She then demonstrates how to kiss, using another cast member played by Jill Winternitz who subtly indicates how genuinely moved she is by the experience. But we can’t forget what is presented as authentic is still well rehearsed acting. To get all the levels to work so well is a considerable achievement by the actors and director Blanche McIntyre.

Just to throw us off balance further, the husband in the first play and the real husband in act two are played by the same actor, a calm, tolerant character on both sides of the curtain, performed to perfection by Oliver Dimsdale. The role The Husband plays in the twist is a reminder from the author that art is manipulation. It can fulfil our fantasies or reflect our more prosaic life.

The set begins as a bare rehearsal room but gradually fills up until designer Robert Innes Hopkins presents us with a believable stage set for a 1930s play, and then a naturalistic apartment with a messy bed, that subsequently becomes another stage set.

This reinforces what Sarah Ruhl seems to be saying: that art and life merge in our own brains. “All the world’s a stage.” We create a story of our lives inside our heads and we bring real emotions to our experience of art. The problem I had with this funny and thoughtful piece of art is that the fate of the three principals didn’t arouse enough emotions in me. Even so, it is a pleasure to have one’s brain tickled as well as one’s funny bone.

Stage Kiss can be seen at Hampstead Theatre until 13 June 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre

Watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

Read the roundup of other critics’ reviews

May 15, 2026May 20, 2026

Theatre review: 1536

Delightful and devastating, controlled and convincing drama

Ambassadors Theatre

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Tanya Reynolds, Siena Kelly, Liv Hill in 1536. Photo: Helen Murray

Don’t be fooled by the posters showing women in smart Tudor dresses. SIX it ain’t. 1536 is the year Henry the 8th accused his wife Anne Boleyn of treason and killed her. Ava Pickett’s play imagines the effect this might have had on women at the lowest levels of society, and, by implication, how the behaviour of powerful men today might influence other men in their attitude to women. And what a well written, superbly acted drama, it is.

It looks at three, I suppose we’d call them, peasant women- their camaraderie, their mutual support, and their ultimate downfall at the hands of men, who are emboldened by the King’s actions. It starts out with some very funny scenes as Ava Pickett’s fast-moving, scintillating dialogue establishes the characters of the women, but it ends in overwhelming tragedy.

Anna played by Siena Kelly enjoys sex. She knows she looks attractive and makes sure she exploits what she sees as an asset. It’s her power over men. She has a sharp tongue and a ribbing sense of humour. The butt of her jokes is usually Jane, played by Liv Hill, Anna’s polar opposite: slow-witted, shy and a virgin. Tanya Reynolds plays the conciliatory Mariella, a worldly midwife saddened by thwarted ambitions.

It’s a joyous portrait of female friendship. The conversation between them is so easy and natural- they speak like modern Essex women (Ms Pickett is from Colchester), which adds to the sense that you could bump into them on a night out.

Then they are shaken by the news (two days old) that the King has imprisoned the Queen. They find it impossible to believe. Inevitably rumours abound but the word is she has had many lovers, including her brother. She may even have plotted to assassinate the monarch. Can it be true? It doesn’t matter. If the King says it is, it must be.

We meet two of the men in their lives. Richard, played by Oliver Johnstone, is one of Anna’s lovers, even while he is courting Jane (for her dowry). George Kemp is William, a married property owner who has a relationship with Mariella. Both appear to be mild mannered.

When things start to go wrong, the male hierarchy follows the King’s example. Anna is labelled a whore while Richard is seen as having been seduced. The other two are also treated badly and (what’s new?) not believed. It’s clear men call the shots and the play proceeds to become very dark indeed, as the bonds with men on which the women relied start to break. As in any oppressive society, the oppressed women not only take the blame for men’s wrongs but start to turn on each other.

It would be so good to be able to say how much society has changed. Shamefully, far too many of today’s powerful men set an example of verbal and physical abuse of women.

Tender and tragic

Liv Hill, Siena Kelly & Tanya Reynolds in 1536. Photo: Helen Murray

All this is acted out on a single set cleverly designed by Max Jones. Clumps of dry trodden down grass, a dead tree and scrubby bushes symbolise the oppressive country. It is meant to be excessively hot, and we feel the heat that is beating the women down at the same time as it stirs the men to cheer the execution of the King’s wife without ever questioning her guilt. Then as now people in power control the information, and gossip (for which read social media) whips up the fake news.

The lighting by Jack Knowles contributes to the atmosphere, and between scenes plunges us into impenetrable blackouts that parallel the darkness in which the local population is kept.

It’s a stunning achievement for a debut play. Credit to the Genesis Almeida scheme for commissioning it, and to the Almeida for this pacey production directed by Lyndsey Turner. West End transfers from small theatres sometimes don’t work but the Ambassadors is appropriately intimate. 1536 is tender and tragic, delightful and devastating, controlled and convincing.

1536 can be seen at The Ambassadors Theatre until 1 August 2026.

Paul was given a review ticket by the producer.

Read a roundup of other critics’ reviews of 1536 here

Click here to watch a video of this review on the YouTube cahnnel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026

Theatre review: Mass

Grief, guilt & hope in gripping play about a school shooting

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Adeel Akhtar, Lyndsey Marshal, Monica Dolan & Paul Hilton in Mass. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

Two couples meet six years after a mass school shooting in the USA that left both their teenage sons dead. In this gripping play about grief, parental love, anger and forgiveness, there are depths of emotion in Fran Kranz‘s Mass that are hard for those of us watching to take. There were moments when I felt I couldn’t breathe. I don’t think I have never been among an audience so quiet.

The production is an extraordinary coming together of script, direction, design and acting. First, the cast. There are some actors so magnetic that they dominate a play with their star quality. Then there are actors- sometimes called character actors- who are so good at immersing themselves in a role that they become one among equals. That’s not to say that the main actors in Mass can’t lead a play- they can and have- but what is valuable about them in an ensemble play like this is that they don’t bring baggage. And that enables you yourself to become immersed in what seems like a real conversation told verbatim.

A couple who lost their son are meeting the couple whose son was the shooter and who killed himself. Jay and Gail, parents of their murdered boy Evan, bring grief and anger to the round table and confront the parents of the killer. Inevitable questions are asked: did they not realise their son was a potential killer, couldn’t they have done something to prevent it? In response, Richard and Linda express their sorrow, their incomprehension at how their son Hayden became a killer, and their own guilty grief at his loss.

Adeel Akhtar‘s Jay is clearly a civilised, liberal man- he offers water and worries about recycling- but at times cannot control the animosity he feels. Lyndsey Marshal‘s Gail is an empty shell. Paul Hilton‘s Richard is stiff and defensive but has a downcast face, racked with sorrow. Monica Dolan‘s Linda is so upset at what became of her little boy that her tears seem wrenched from deep inside her. Both mothers are especially moving when they remember their sons as young children.

You can’t look away from this impeccable production

Mass at The Donmar. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

It is essential to maintaining the tension that there is no break in continuity in Carrie Cracknell‘s impeccable production, so the participants remain seated for nearly the whole exchange. That’s rare in itself because so many directors seem to make the actors walk up and down just to keep it interesting. Consequently, to avoid us having to look at the back of someone’s head the whole time, there is a revolve that moves imperceptibly but turns them round regularly so we get to see all their faces, and you can’t look away from all the pain they are expressing.

The play is set in the meeting room of a church, ironically a soulless piece of modern architecture with lots of glass and light but no human touch. This is expertly conjured by designer Anna Yates, who shows us the mundane kitchen and corridors and stairs outside the room. As if to emphasise the way something extraordinary can happen in the middle of something quite everyday, at the start and end of the play, the room is set up and cleared by other characters played by Rochelle Rose, Amari Bacchus and Susie Trayling.

This is not a play of despair. Yes, Fran Kranz, who made the 2021 film on which this is based, examines reactions to tragedy, but he also explores the concept of restorative justice. This is where the play takes on a greater dimension. We may not live in the USA- mass killings are far less common here in the UK. They do happen nevertheless. But we are also part of a world in which war and terrorism breed more of the same. And at an individual level, people cope with the results of knife attacks, dangerous driving and more. Loss leaves people seeking retribution, but the resultant resentment and revenge can destroy us. Reconciliation, where the perpetrators admit their guilt and the victims forgive, offers hope that, instead of being consumed by grief, the parents can live alongside it. There is no sense that this is an easy or a complete answer but the understanding the couples gain about each other in the course of the play offers the prospect of peace.

This is an important play. Fran Kranz, Carrie Cracknell and the extraordinary cast of Mass have given us an insight into the anguish of loss and the possibility of hope. The characters may be made up, but the tears we shed at the end are real.

Mass can be seen at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London until 6 June 2026. Tickets from https://www.donmarwarehouse.com/
Paul paid for his ticket.

Click here to watch the video of this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

May 6, 2026May 7, 2026

Theatre review: Magic

Not enough magic in David Haig’s tense drama

Chichester Festival Theatre

⭑⭑⭑

Hadley Fraser, Jenna Augen & David Haig in Magic. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Magic- the art of creating something believable that seems inexplicable. The magic of an illusionist like Houdini. The magic of spiritualism. The magic of actors creating real people. There are many kinds of magic explored and linked in David Haig‘s play Magic at Chichester Festival Theatre, about the time Sir Arthur Conan Doyle met Harry Houdini. The concept is genuinely interesting, and well acted. But is it magical theatre? I’m afraid not quite.

The play is about a search for truth (something even more urgent today than then, I suspect). Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, and Houdini, the world’s greatest illusionist, form a friendship because both are genuinely interested in whether those they love live on after death. They both would like spiritualism to be the answer. Doyle, the creator Sherlock Holmes, turns out to be far more gullible than Houdini, who is cynical because he is well versed in the tricks of his own trade.

First a word about spiritualism. It was a religious movement, popular in the US and the UK, that gained a lot of traction after the First World War when people were grieving for dead sons, not to mention the many who died in the great Influenza outbreak of 1919. More than a simple belief in ghosts, spiritualists at the time thought that the spirits of people who die live on in the afterlife and can be contacted to guide or comfort us, through mediums. Already a spiritualist, Sir Arthur became an even more fervent believer after the loss of members of his family, in particular his beloved son Kingsley who was killed in the Great War. Houdini was devoted to his dead mother and dearly wished to be able to communicate with her.

It’s a drama loosely based on a true story. The true bit being that Doyle and Houdini formed a friendship back in the 1920s, based on mutual admiration and a common interest in the afterlife. In the play, it becomes strained because Doyle’s obession with spiritualism led him to refuse to believe evidence that magic did not exist (he was even convinced that some of Houdini’s tricks involved genuine dematerialisation). The illusionist showed an equally obsessive determination to expose fake mediums’ ruses. Unfortunately for their friendship, this included the medium who apparently united Doyle with his dead son, and the writer’s own wife who pretended to receive messages from beyond the grave. In real life, they became distant enemies but in the play their residual mutual admiration means they maintain a fractious friendship that adds a real tension to the drama. That’s a trick of the writer’s trade- conflict being the driver of great stories.

David Haig, who wrote the script, plays Doyle. Hadley Fraser is Houdini. The pair exude both warmth and grief. Haig plays Doyle as a good chap, who, as an ex-public schoolboy, has been taught to contain his complex emotions, but can’t hold back his enthusiasm and his desperation. One of the many tricks of his trade as an actor is a twinkly-eyed smile that he deploys to magical effect. Hadley Fraser is appropriately stocky, pugilistic, thin-skinned and burning with passion, much like a bulldog puppy.

Tricks of the trade

Jenna Augen and Claire Price provide sharp depictions of their highly supportive wives, Bess Houdini and Jean Conan Doyle. Although the humorous down-to-earth New Yorker and buttoned-up middle class Brit are in sharp contrast, they too form a friendship, and provide us with a useful break from the intensity of the main characters. Jade Williams is a suitably melodramatic medium.

There is poignancy to the play. It shows us the depths of grief and what it can do to us, be it heartbreak or obsession. So there is theatrical magic in the story of these two characters’ friendship, and that’s where David Haig’s script and Lucy Bailey‘s production scores. Where it goes wrong is when it tries to show us the magic of seances and illusions.

We can only imagine the spectacle and showmanship of Houdini’s shows. Trying to show us this on the limitations of a theatre budget is a mistake. We begin with Houdini performing one of his great escapes- he is suspended upside down while releasing himself from handcuffs. Far from causing my jaw to drop, all I could manage was a shrug. If he’d been in chains and underwater, then maybe… Similarly, near the end, he appears to walk through a brick wall, but of course it’s a piece of scenery, presumably made of wood not brick, and there isn’t time for the kind of buildup that Houdini would have given such a main event. Having said that, there are many lovely little touches, for example when Harry is sitting chatting and casually makes a playing card appear and disappear in his hand. Credit to illusion designer John Bullein.

A couple of seances are recreated, and are more comical than spine-tingling, Carrying them out partly in the dark simply left me in the dark as to how Doyle could fall for them.

Add to this, Chichester’s large thrust stage is set out with a proscenium arch at the back to remind us, that Houdini’s act and the seances, and indeed the play itself, are all theatre. Joanna Parker‘s design is lovely but again a low budget of four or five vaudeville showgirls moving lightweight scenery around doesn’t make for theatrical magic. I’m sad to say, it just looks half baked.

A difficult decision no doubt, but I think this intimate drama would have worked better in Chichester’s smaller Minerva Theatre.

Magic can be seen at Chichester Festival Theatre until 16 May 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre
Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

April 28, 2026April 30, 2026

Theatre review: The Price with Henry Goodman

Veteran actor steals the show

Marylebone Theatre

⭑⭑⭑⭑

Henry Goodman in The Price. Photo: Mark Senior

What a coup for the 270-seat, three-and-a-half year old Marylebone Theatre, managing to attract theatrical great Henry Goodman to perform in Arthur Miller’s The Price. Director Jonathan Munby has put together a marvellously tense production populated by a perfect cast.

In the first minutes, we meet Vic and his wife Esther and find out pretty much everything we need to know about what is going to unfold. There’s the obsession with placing a monetary value on everything- Vic has cinema tickets: “Better be great” he says, “Two-fifty apiece”. It seems everything has a price in a country built on capitalism, as the socialist Miller saw it. Even the unhappiness explored in the play stems from the financial crash of 1929.

The questions are already there- how much was Vic forced to do what he did with his life, how much was his choice? Now he’s turned 50 and can retire and pursue a more satisfying career, will he have the confidence to do it? They could do with money but will he accept help from his brother? He’s here to sell their late father’s possessions to a dealer, but will he drive a hard bargain? We suspect not.

Enter Gregory Solomon. He is there to assess the furniture and other objects, but this wily salesman is clearly also assessing who he is dealing with. So, let me tell you about 75 year old Henry Goodman as 89 year old Gregory Solomon. About a quarter way into the play, he comes on stage, wheezing and coughing. He appears frail but is full of life. His character is fully rounded and we can’t help but be seduced by his stories and homilies. Even when the way his eyes shiftily scan the room, or he stiffens as he refuses to let go of the opportunity to make one last deal suggest his dithering charm may be an act. Once Esther is out of the room, he laughs and ingratiates himself with Vic. By the end of act one he has taken charge and undoubtedly conned the other man out of what he should rightfully be receiving. I could be talking about how Henry Goodman steals the show.

It’s almost a shame for Elliot Cowan, who plays Vic, because he is so good at conveying his character’s weakness, stubbornness, and love. His expressive face glowers or smiles, his eyes stare into the distance in suspicion or pain, almost begging the audience to empathise. So convincing was he that I could hardly restrain myself from calling out in frustration: “Stop being so pig-headed.” Mr Cowan should be getting all the accolades at the end of the show, but Henry Goodman is so phenomenally good, that he dominates a play in which he is barely on stage for more than a quarter of the time.

In 1968, when the play was first produced, the USA was mired in the Vietnam War, and alternative ways of thinking about how to value life, other than by monetary price, were being considered. ”We worry about it, we talk about it, but we can’t seem to want it.” says Esther about money. What’s bugging her and Vic is, when the brothers grew up, Walter went to college and pursued a successful career as a surgeon, while Vic stayed home to look after his widowed father. In doing so, he took on a relatively low paid job as a cop, which he hates. The resentment has led to an estrangement between the brothers. Esther, played by Faye Castelow, supports her husband but berates him too, in a nicely balanced expression of marital love and frustration.

Riveting dialogue

Henry Goodman & Elliot Cowan in The Price. Photo: Mark Senior

All the action takes place in an attic that was once the impoverished family’s home after the father’s wealth was wiped out. Among the furniture are two chests. One was Vic’s, one his brother’s. Significantly, they are on opposite sides of the room. Jon Bausor‘s naturalistic set is just as depicted in Miller’s script: no clever interpretation by a director trying to make their mark. It makes full use of the Marylebone Theatre’s large proscenium arch stage and crams it full of old furniture, dusty, dimly lit, claustrophobic. It’s so overwhelming, you feel you’re in the room with these people.

Having shown how Vic’s lack of a killer instinct is manipulated by Solomon in the first act, the second act concentrates on the confrontation between Vic and Walter, with Esther periodically supporting her brother-in-law and jabbing at her husband, and Solomon popping in occasionally to make a conciliatory comment.

The brothers’ conversation is riveting, as they go round in circles, edging nearer and nearer to the facts about what happened to shape both their lives. In this respect, the format is typical Miller but no less engaging for that, even if the dialogue is overly portentous at times. What separates it for the earlier classics like Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and A View From The Bridge is that there is no devastating revelation, more a profound reflection on the paths we take.

Each brother has a different view of past events. They learn from each other the truth about the price they have both had to pay for choices made, and how they subsequently blamed others for those choices. Each took “different roads out of the same trap”, as Walter puts it, but became unhappy in the new traps they found themselves in. Walter has reached a clearer view than Vic about the past, and John Hopkins conveys brilliantly his broken dreams and desperate wish to reconcile with his brother.

We also learn that, in relation to his wife and sons, their father may have been a con man, not dissimilar to Solomon. Walter says of their parents: “What was unbearable is not that it fell apart, it was that there was never anything here.” And (back to money): “There was nothing (…) but a straight financial arrangement.”

There is no sense in which their lives will greatly change, only perhaps that they may live more comfortably with themselves in the present, much in the way Solomon does. For him, the past is like a dream, and the present rewrites the past. As he says, “Good luck you can never know until the last minute.”

Arthur Miller, despite having strong political views, is not a writer to lay things out in black and white, as good or bad. Each character is a complex human being with complicated relationships and, like all his great work, The Price gives no simplistic analysis of the brothers’ lives. Repeated viewings are rewarded with ever deeper understanding of human nature and society, especially when performed by actors who can plumb those depths.

Elliot Cowan should be a contender for Best Leading Actor awards but, if there’s any justice, Henry Goodman has Best Supporting Actor in the bag.

The Price can be seen at Marylebone Theatre until 7 June 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.

Slight revisions (in italic) were made to this review on 30 April 2026.

Read a roundup of other critics’ reviews here

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

April 3, 2026April 20, 2026

Theatre review: John Proctor is the Villain

A joyous celebration of young women

Jerwood Downstairs at Royal Court Theatre

John Proctor Is The Villain at the Royal Court Theatre Photo: Camilla Greenwood

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It’s set in rural America. It’s about teenage girls in a high school. It has a point to make and it makes it. There are many reasons why I shouldn’t like Kimberly Belflower‘s play John Proctor is the Villain. And yet I loved it.

Why? Well, let’s begin at the end: an uplifting, liberating finale for the young women whose world we have inhabited for the last couple of hours. The previously mundane classroom lighting becomes a euphoric light show as the girls dance to Green Light by Lorde, defiantly in unison ,and unified behind the abused women of The Crucible. I had a tear of joy in my eye.

If you’re anything like me (old white male), it may be a world you’ve scarcely encountered before. For women, the girls’ friendships, their passion and their early encounters with sex will likely resonate more. It doesn’t matter. One of play’s defining strengths is the authenticity with which it draws these young women, compelling you to care about them, regardless of your age, gender or background. The dialogue is believable, and often very funny, inviting us to laugh both with and at the girls. It captures the angst and rapture, the confidence and vulnerability, of standing on the brink of adulthood.

So where does the play begin? The year is 2018. We’re in a high school classroom in a ‘one-stoplight town’ in Georgia. A class of four 16 to 17 year old girls, and a couple of boys, are studying Arthur Miller’s The Crucible under the guidance of a charismatic teacher called Carter Smith. He’s approachable, affable and speaks their language. Unsurprisingly, they adore him.

Momentous events unfold, but don’t expect subtext and intricate layers. The girls are who they are and don’t really change. They are affected not by internal transformation of the kind John Proctor undergoes in The Crucible, but from the external circumstances that confront them.

What evolves in the play is their perception of society- both their immediate environment and the wider world. This is the time when the #MeToo movement is at its most visible and influential. The girls form a feminist group. All is going well until Shelby returns after several months of unexplained absence. Tensions rise. Raelynn is far from pleased: the two had been best friends until Raelynn’s boyfriend Lee cheated on her with Shelby. Lee remains in the class. Oh, and Ivy is in a predicament because her father, whom she reveres, has had an affair with his secretary.

Through the prism of #MeToo and their own lived experiences, they begin to recognise both the ways in which a male-dominated society seeks to diminish them and the power inherent in their identity and friendship. To Mr Smith, The Crucible‘s John Proctor is one of the great heroes of literature, admired for defying the Witch Trials, until Shelby prompts a re-evaluation. Does this married man’s affair with a young servant, who he later calls a ‘whore’, make him less a hero, more a villain? The subsequent discussion ends in a bombshell.

Miya James and Sadie Soverall in John Proctor is the Villain. Photo: Camilla Greenwood

The young women deliver remarkable performances. The future of British acting is safe, if they are anything to go by. A standout is Sadie Soverall as the troubled but clever Shelby. Miya James brings a rare stillness and intensity to Raelynn. Lauren Ajufo is Nell, the girl who comes from a big city, Holly Howden Gilchrist is the swot and ‘teacher’s pet’ Beth, and Clare Hughes is the straightlaced Ivy. Much credit is surely due to director Damya Taymor (who also directed the Broadway production) for eliciting such nuanced work.

The other actors complete a formidable ensemble. Dónal Finn is entirely convincing as the smiling, superficially charming teacher. He’s a magnetic actor, who seems ubiquitous at the moment, having appeared on stage in Hadestown, is also currently to be seen on screen in The Other Bennet Sister and Young Sherlock. Charlie Borg makes the most of the smaller role of Lee, a representative sexist male. Reece Braddock as the dopey but sympathetic Mason and Molly McFadden as the inexperienced young counsellor are both making their professional stage debuts, but you really wouldn’t know it from the quality and confidence of their acting.

The design, by AMP featuring Teresa L. Williams, initially presents a naturalistic classroom complete with blackboard, fluorescent lights and daylight filtering through the windows. Yet appearances are deceptive. Natasha Katz‘s lighting isolates characters in moments of revelation, while the ecstatic final sequence, when the girls challenge the male hierarchy, plunges the room into chaos through jarring projections and a striking mauve wash.

It’s sadly true that #MeToo doesn’t seem to have made more than a small dent in the ways of the world. We remain surrounded by stark examples of male toxicity: figures such as Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Mohamed Al Fahed are high profile examples, but far too often, in everyday life, those in positions of authority- teachers, fathers and other men take advantage of women and girls. In a city near me, a number of male teachers at a girls’ school have recently been prosecuted for sexually abusing their students.

There may be an element of wish fulfilment in the rapid ideological awakening of these girls (and one of the boys) to feminism. Ordinarily, I would resist a drama whose message hammers me so hard on the head, but this joyous play is irresistible.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Royal Court Theatre, which in 1956 became the first British theatre to stage The Crucible. While John Proctor is a Villain may not possess the same depth and complexity as Miller’s masterpiece, it offers something equally valuable: a thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable night out at the theatre.

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre. The review was slightly revised for clarity on 7 April 2026.

John Proctor is the Villain can be seen at Jerwood Theatre Downstairs at The Royal Court Theatre in London until 25 April 2026. Buy tickets direct from the theatre

Click here to read the roundup of other critics’ reviews of John Proctor is the Villain

Watch this review on the youtube channel Theatre reviews With Paul Seven

March 17, 2026March 18, 2026

Theatre review: The BFG

A magical show for all ages

Chichester Festival Theatre

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The BFG at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

This joint production by Chichester Festival Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company is hugely impressive — no pun intended. If The BFG lacks quite the same tug at the heartstrings as that other celebrated Roald Dahl adaptation, Matilda, it more than compensates with its magical staging, inventive effects, and the delightful interplay between human performers and puppetry.

The set for The BFG is perfectly suited to the thrust stage at Chichester. We, the audience, are placed right in the heart of the giant’s world, as enormous figures loom out towards the front row and Chris Fisher’s illusions dazzle and surprise.

You probably know the story — the book has sold more than 40 million copies — but just in case: Sophie is a little girl living in an orphanage. One night she encounters a mysterious giant who is out collecting dreams. To preserve his secrecy he carries her off to Giant country, but the two soon become friends, and Sophie christens him the Big Friendly Giant.

The BFG explains that his nightly mission is to capture pleasant dreams and deliver them to unhappy children, while destroying nightmares. He also reveals that other giants roam the land — far larger and far less friendly — and that they have a taste for what he calls “human beans”. Together, Sophie and the BFG devise a plan to enlist the Queen’s help in capturing the fearsome giants.

John Leader in The BFG. Photo: Marc Brenner

Central to the success of this production is its ingenious use of puppets, designed by Toby Olié. At times the BFG appears as a puppet alongside a human actor playing Sophie; at others the roles are reversed, with Sophie represented as a puppet while the BFG is portrayed by an actor. The transitions between these forms are executed so seamlessly that you barely notice them happening.

The puppeteers are magnificent. The BFG puppet is operated by four performers, who imbue him with life through wonderfully subtle movements and gestures. When he appears at human scale, John Leader gives us a warm, endearing BFG, and much of the comedy arises from his exuberant ‘squiff-squiddling’ of the English language: wondercrump, winksquiffler, gobblefunking, and so on.

On the night I attended, Sophie was confidently played by Martha Bailey Vine, who navigated the character’s emotional journey — from fear and frustration to sadness and delight — with assurance. The adaptation by Tom Wells also introduces a friend for Sophie called Kimberley, excellently portrayed on that occasion by Uma Patel.

The Queen, played with relish by Helena Lymbery, is enormous fun, evolving from ceremonial figurehead to decisive leader. Indeed, this is very much a story in which females ultimately save the day.

Support comes from two hapless RAF men, played with great humour by Philip Labey and Luke Sumner. Sargon Yelda is Tibbs the butler, who begins stiffly formal but grows increasingly animated as events unfold. And there’s the villainous giant Bloodbottler, played at human scale by Richard Riddell, which creates another fascinating puppetry dynamic: the BFG becomes a small puppet, and Sophie an even tinier mannequin.

And this is perhaps where the production reveals both its greatest strength and its one slight weakness. As wonderful as the puppetry is, it can sometimes be harder to emotionally connect with the smaller puppets. The sense of danger is therefore somewhat diminished, along with the emotional stakes. That said, I suspect this may simply be the perspective of an adult — younger audience members are likely to be completely enthralled.

The BFG is a magical show from former CFT Director Daniel Evans, who is now at the RSC. Glasses of frobscottle all round!

The BFG can be seen at Chichester Festival Theatre until 11 April 2026 (buy tickets directly from cft.org.uk) and then in Singapore.

Paul was given a review ticket by the theatre.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven.

February 21, 2026February 25, 2026

Theatre review: Rock And Roll Man

Rock’n’roll musical raises the roof

Salisbury Playhouse

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Constantine Maroulis in Rock And Roll Man. Photo: Pamela Raith

If you’re British and under 75, the name Alan Freed probably won’t mean anything to you. He was an American DJ and he died in 1965. Rock And Roll Man, a musical about his life, could only have originated in the USA, and bringing it over here may be regarded as a bit of a gamble. As it turns out, Freed’s life was richly dramatic- he not only popularised the term ‘rock’n’roll’, he championed Black music to white audiences and pioneered integration at concerts at a time when segregation and racism was entrenched in America. He also strayed from the straight and narrow.

So, Alan Freed is a compelling figure at a pivotal point in music history. Nevertheless, it’s the music that takes centre stage. Even for someone of my vintage, the songs featured in Rock And Roll Man were already history by the time I reached my teens. Having said that, many of them, like Roll Over Beethoven, Tutti Frutti and Yakety Yak have become classics. Even if you’ve never heard them before, you’ll find impossible to stop your hands clapping and your feet tapping. In fact, the show could do with more songs played consecutively to raise the temperature even higher.

The jukebox musical, where the show is built around existing songs, is a difficult genre to conquer. Unlike classic musical theatre, where the songs organically advance the plot and illuminate character, the narrative can feel subordinate, perfunctory even, compared with the power of the music.

It helps therefore that the show incorporates several original numbers by Gary Kupper, written specifically for Freed to sing. They’re not great songs but they do the job of making it feel much more like integrated musical theatre. Constantine Maroulis, as Freed, is a superb vocalist and persuasive actor, endowed with an audience charming charisma.

In the musical, we see how Freed fell in love with rock’n’roll records by Black artists, started to play them on his radio show rather than bland white crooners despite opposition, then organised concerts with integrated audiences which elicited a violent reaction from the authorities. We see him reach heights of national fame before his TV show is cancelled because a Black man danced with a white woman, and then his downfall.

The performers are, by and large, accomplished actors as well as singers. The principal singers have voices that are both powerful and mellifluous. Joey James is Chuck Berry personified, down to his signature ‘duck walk’, Marquie Hairston is a splendid Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Anton Stephens‘ beautiful bass voice is lent is Bo Diddley, and Cherece Richards brings a commanding presence to LaVern Baker, a rare female singer from this period. Jairus McClanahan is a gloriously camp a camp Little Richard who lights up the stage with his presence. Their combined harmonies as The Platters, The Coasters and other groups are gorgeous.

Gary Turner is likeable as both Leo, Freed’s early business partner and friend, and later Morris, his more edgy mate from the Mob. Shelby Speed demonstrates impressive versatility as his mother, wife, daughter and more. Mark Pearce is, among others, an authoritative J Edgar Hoover. Under the assured direction of Randal Myler, with dynamic choreography from Stephanie Klemons, the production is slick, stylish and energetically staged.

There’s a clever plot device in the book, which helps give shape to this superior jukebox musical. Gary Kupper, Larry Marshak and Rose Caiola, who wrote the book, cast much of the narrative as a dream, in which Freed imagines himself on trial for promoting rock’n’roll. There is some reasoning behind this, since the prosecutor is J Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, and it was that organisation that pursued Freed for encouraging this ‘degenerate’ music. What was degenerate about it? It was blatantly sexual and, perhaps more importantly, it was seen to be encouraging integration between black and white people- a radical proposition in 1950s and 60s America. So, Freed becomes an unlikely yet significant protagonist in the struggle for social change. Regrettably, this useful framework all but disappears in the second half.

Maybe it was because he had a target on his back, that Freed was plagued by scandals. It seems the practices of payola and tax evasion were common in the corrupt music industry but it was he whose career was destroyed, and that causes the musical to peter out. The show loses its shape and impetus as it heads to a distinctly downbeat end (spoiler alert: Freed dies), but the music plays on. Alan Freed may have faded from our collective memory but the music he shared with the the world still raises the roof.

Rock And Roll Man can be seen at Salisbury Playhouse until 7 March 2026 and then on tour to Theatre Royal Windsor (10-14 March), Cambridge Arts Theatre (16-21 March) and Lighthouse Poole (23-28 March)

[This review was revised on 23/24 February to synchronise the phrasing with that of the YouTube version]

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven