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

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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

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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

February 19, 2026February 20, 2026

Theatre review: Ben Daniels in Man And Boy

Terence Rattigan’s play is overpowered by Ben Daniels’ thrilling performance

⭑⭑⭑⭑

Ben Daniels in Man And Boy. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Terence Rattigan is now recognised as one of our great playwrights, spoken of as a successor to Ibsen and Chekov. But this wasn’t always so. After his pre-eminence in the 1940s and 50s, he was swept aside by the new wave of so-called kitchen sink and absurdist drama from the likes of Osborne and Pinter. So when Man And Boy arrived in 1962, it was pretty much dismissed by audiences and critics. It took until 2005 before there was a revival in London, which, although well received, still didn’t bring it into the repertoire of regularly performed Rattigan plays such as The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, The Deep Blue Sea, and Separate Tables.

Is it then a problem play? Well, the National Theatre is giving us a chance to find out, albeit clothed in a thoroughly modern makeover. The trouble is, Anthony Lau‘s stripped down treatment featuring Ben Daniels leaping on and off tables, tends to overpower the play itself. Then again, it’s such a thrill, maybe that doesn’t matter.

Man And Boy, set in the early 1930s, when financial markets were unstable, centres an amoral, sociopathic millionaire and his relationship with his son. Gregor Antonescu is said to the richest, cleverest financier in the world. Ben Daniels, suited and booted, knocks the role into the acting stratosphere, brilliantly conveying a fast talking charm while occasionally revealing his savage contempt for all around him. He smiles, he bares his teeth, he moves like a raptor.

‘Liquidity and confidence’ keep him afloat, and it’s a phrase he often repeats. As the play begins, liquidity has deserted him in this world where loans are moved around and called in at dizzying speed, and with that has gone his backers’ confidence in him. Matters are made worse when criminal charges are brought against him. ‘In finance, man makes his own miracles,’ says Gregor, and sets about proving his point. A radio provides an urgent commentary. It’s a searing, damning portrait of the world of the super rich, that resonates today.

Trying to avoid the media while he attempts to make a deal that will save him, he holes up in his estranged son Basil’s pokey apartment in a poor part of New York. It turns out the venue is not random. He has set up a meeting with a major banker Mark Herries, played with a combination of smarm and steel by Malcolm Sinclair. Herries is a closet gay man, whom Gregor hopes to manipulate by passing off his son as a rent boy that he can link up with.

Basil is played with a moving mixture of sadness and surliness by Laurie Kynaston. He is a sensitive musician with a social conscience, hence ‘weak’ in Gregor’s eyes. At first, Basil is hostile to his father- ‘you are nothing’ he says- yet still shows filial loyalty when his father is under threat. So, the second half of the play looks more closely at this damaged relationship, with a broken Gregor who has previously said ‘love is a commodity I can’t afford’ wondering whether he has underestimated the importance of love, and Basil doing everything he can to gain that missing paternal affection.

So, what about the tables? On the stage of Georgia Lowe‘s traverse-style set are three long tables that are moved into different configurations for no reason that was apparent to me, unless it was an elaborate pun to do with turning the tables on his enemies. In addition, there are a few simple chairs, a piano, a telephone, a radio, and I think that was it.

On one wall at the back of the theatre is projected the cast list and above the stage entrance the neon words ‘Knock Knock’, although it’s always a doorbell that rings. Why? It could be an attempt at Brechtian alienation, intended to make us step back from emotional involvement, and think about the moral issues. I doubt Rattigan would have approved.

Do the tables help or hinder?

So do the tables help or hinder our understanding of the play? Looked at positively, they create some dramatic moments when Ben Daniels jumps onto them and looks down on all around him. At these times, he is the colossus the world believes him to be, and when he crouches on his haunches and leans over his son, he is like an alpha male silverback gorilla. But, also, they are only cheap kitchen tables, an apt metaphor for the flimsy foundations of Gregor’s power. Credit here to Choreographer and Movement Director Aline David.

Ben Daniels & Laurie Kynaston in Man And Boy. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Then again, when other characters clamber onto a table, the effect feels mannered and a bit distracting. Are they isolating themselves from those close to them, as they are already doing emotionally? Maybe. Or are they just doing it because the tables are there? Any way you interpret it, I will always think of this as the ‘table production’.

I guess we’re used to seeing plays by Rattigan’s contemporaries, writers like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, being given minimalist settings, not to mention those by the father of naturalism, Ibsen. But a naturalistic background has come to seem integral to Rattigan’s work. Very few of us have had the opportunity to see Man And Boy in a conventional production, so it’s hard to judge what is gained or lost in this stripped-bare version.

While the first half dominance of Ben Daniels was thrilling, and his breakdown in the second half shocking, yet his sheer theatrical force, and (yes) the tables, stopped me from getting fully engaged with the evolution of the father-son relationship. This may be intentional, since the play’s centre of gravity is undeniably Gregor.

The other characters we encounter are very much secondary, albeit well played. Phoebe Campbell brings verve to Basil’s girlfriend Carol. Gregor knows all about her, because he has spies, and information is power in his world (that’s how he knows about Mark Harries’ secret life). Leo Wan is David Beeston, an accountant at first confident and aggressive when he tries to prove Gregor’s corruption, but who breaks down in the face of humiliation and frustration. Isabella Laughland gives a delightful performance as Gregor’s semi-detached wife, enjoying the high life but annoyed at the lack of attention from her husband. Nick Fletcher plays Sven, Gregor’s cynical consigliere. It is significant that when Gregor hits rock bottom and craves some human touch, his Wife and his closest friend both make their excuses.

By the way, although I said the set is two-sided, there are gallery and circle seats on the other two sides. I would advise you that those areas offer severely restricted views.

Man And Boy make lack the finesse of Rattigan’s best plays, but Anthony Lau’s bold staging and Ben Daniels mighty performance make the revivial well worthwhile.

Man And Boy can be seen at the National Theatre until 14 March 2026. Buy tickets directly from nationaltheatre.org.uk

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February 12, 2026February 12, 2026

Theatre review: Fallen Angels

It’s not Coward’s words, it’s the women that makes this a hit

Menier Chocolate Factory

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Alexandra Gilbreath, Sarah Twomey & Janie Dee in Fallen Angels. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I’ve been to three shows this year in which women in unsatisfactory marriages assess the alternatives. All were written in the years between the two world wars, all are funny, but the one that made me laugh the most was Fallen Angels by Noel Coward, and, surprisingly, it wasn’t because of The Master’s legendary wit.

J B Priestley’s When We Are Married at The Donmar depicts three couples who discover they are not legally married. The husbands learn a lesson about how they should treat their wives. And that, unfortunately, is about it. An opportunity wasted. Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife, given a stylish makeover by Laura Wade and now touring, finds a wife turning the tables on her adulterous husband to considerable comic effect.

All the authors have a way with words. What makes Fallen Angels at the Menier Chocolate Factory the funniest play I’ve seen in a long time is not Coward’s witty aphorisms. They’re there all right, but it’s no Private Lives or Present Laughter. What elevates it to comedy heights is the production itself, directed by Christopher Luscombe with lightness and pace, and the dazzling physical comedy of its three female stars.

First, a brief outline of the plot. Julia and Jane’s husbands, played by Richard Teverson and Christopher Hollis, go off on a golfing weekend, conveniently coinciding with the anticipated return of Maurice, a Frenchman with whom both women had pre-marital relationships. A clue as to what might follow comes when Julia informs her husband Fred that while they may love one another, after ten years of marriage, they are no longer ‘in love’. The play places women’s unfulfilled sexual desire firmly in the spotlight. No wonder it caused a scandal back in 1925, although that wasn’t the only reason, as we’ll see.

Noel Coward’s dialogue is amusing, especially during the women’s giggling memories of their past romances and breathless anticipation of their former lover’s arrival. He gave the hint of how they’re feeling with lines as close to being censored as he could get, as when Jane says, ‘Oh I adore a little sausage with my egg’. Yet, Janie Dee as Julia and Alexandra Gilbreath as Jane, barely need the nudge. You can feel the heat radiating from them.

However, what had the audience rolling in the aisles is the physical humour. In Act One, we meet the new maid, Saunders, played by Sarah Twomey. The notion of a servant more clever than his or her employer is not novel. It’s been around since Ancient Greece and P G Wodehouse’s great creations Jeeves and Wooster would have been familiar to Mr Coward.

In Fallen Angels, she swiftly demonstrates that she can play the piano better than Julia, knows more about golf than Fred, and speaks French better than any of them. Her standout moment comes when she prepares the room for dinner while performing ballet, every gesture from placing flowers to laying a table cloth is choreographed perfectly to the music. Credit here to movement director Nicola Keen– and Noel Coward is nowhere in sight.

A masterpiece of physical comedy

The cast of Fallen Angels at The Menier. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Sarah Twomey would steal the show, except that in Act Two, Julia and Jane, waiting for the arrival of Maurice, consume an entire meal (I lost track of how many courses) and get increasingly inebriated in the process. Women getting drunk was the other reason the play was a cause célèbre. In the hands of Janie Dee and Alexandra Gilbreath, the physical comedy builds with the courses of the meal. They begin pleasantly tipsy on cocktails reminiscing with giddy nostalgia about their time with Maurice. By the end of the act they are blind drunk on champagne, falling over, bickering and nearly coming to blows over their former lover.

Slow reactions, shocked looks, ungainly postures abound. The success lies in the minutiae – for example, there’s a moment when Jane kicks her shoes off in an extravagant gesture, then gingerly places her aching feet on the floor; or when Julia goes to lean on the piano and misses. It’s a masterpiece of comic observation that had the audience in stitches. There are also – thank you, Mr Coward- outlandish insults: ‘I’d like to rush up and down Bond street with one of your tiny heads on a pole’ snarls Jane.

Simon Higlett‘s art deco set beautifully recreates a London flat from the inter war years, and reinforces that this was an era in which elegance ruled, making the women’s behaviour all the more comical (and shocking back then).

After the interval, Act Three is something of an anti-climax. Hangovers seem to afflict characters and audience alike. But the arrival of Maurice, played with suave sophistication by Graham Vick, and the return of the two husbands (slowly realising with shocked looks that their wives might prefer their old flame to them) give us much to enjoy and a satisfyingly neat conclusion.

Fallen Angels can be seen at The Menier Chocolate Factory until 21 February 2026.

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February 1, 2026February 5, 2026

Theatre Review: The Producers – Now and Then

Mel Brook’s musical is almost as offensive as ever (Thank goodness)

Garrick Theatre

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

Andy Nyman & Marc Antolin in The ~producers. Photo: Manuel Harlan

The Producers was and still is one of the great musical comedies, so why was I slightly disappointed in the current West End production? Not so let down by it that I didn’t find it laugh-out-loud funny nor so dissatsified that I wouldn’t recommend it, but left with the feeling that it is unwise to mess with perfection.

This production is the first one in London that Mel Brooks has allowed that doesn’t have to stick to Susan Stroman‘s original Broadway direction. It was probably necessary to have that agreement simply to be able to present it in the tiny space of The Menier Chocolate Factory, where it was created pre-transfer.

The spectacle may be reduced but there is still enough going on to dazzle the audience and fill the Garrick stage. As well being effective in puncturing the vainglory of fascism, The Producers is (like Spamalot!) an affectionate send-up of Broadway musicals. No matter how much fun there is along the way, the success of the show is founded on it being a great musical itself. Director Patrick Marber shows he is aware of this: the clever songs, the slapstick and the dancing are done to perfection.

You wallow in the glory of the big build of Springtime for Hitler number with its goosestepping troopers in Busby Berkeley style formation, King of Broadway, where Max (played by Andy Nyman) lamenting his failure becomes a pastiche of Fiddler On The Roof, the hilarious zimmer frame number danced by the old ladies who give Max cheques in exchange for sex, and I Wanna Be A Producer sung by Leo played by Marc Antolin, who brilliantly develops his character from a nervous accountant to confident impresario. Mr Marber, directing his first musical, has been well served by choreographer Lorin Latarro and set designer Scott Pask.

However a slight reduction in scale isn’t the only change. There is a noticeable shift from the 2001 production that may, or may not, be designed to accommodate changing sensitivities. That may seem an odd thing to say about a show that is renowned for shocking audiences with its offensiveness, ever since the film was released in 1967. It was written to shock liberal audiences with its swastikas, campness, and more.

That’s all still there. If anything, it’s even more camp, and the Nazis even more shocking. The scene where the producers recruit director (and transvestite) Roger de Bris now contains a living statue with an enormous penis (which Roger slaps), and a Jesus in a nappy that could have stepped straight out of Jerry Springer The Musical. Trevor Ashley as Roger and Raj Ghatak as Carmen Ghia are on a Liberace level of campness that still somehow remains rooted in real characters.

The idea of camp as synonymous with being gay dates from a time when it was necessary to negate and subvert homophobia. On the other hand, while there is no longer a stereotype gay person, unapologetically camp celebrities like Alan Carr and Julian Clary remain popular gay icons. In the case of The Producers, you’ll remember that when the two producers Max and Leo plan to create a musical flop, they decide to put on a show celebrating Hitler, written by a Nazi pigeon fancier played by Harry Morrison, who is all the more funny for being serious. Their mistake is to make everything as camp as possible (Keep It Gay), which, in mocking Hitler and the Nazis, transforms their musical Springtime For Hitler into a hit.

Not offensive enough?

So the campness is essential, but something has changed. To understand what, you only have to look at Umma’s scene. This is where a woman auditions before Max and Leo. Inevitably she is Swedish, partly because in the world of Mel Brooks stereotypes, Sweden is synonymous with sexual liberation, and also because in that same world, accents are always funny. She sings When You’ve Got It Flaunt It. Only, in this production, she doesn’t. Flaunt it, I mean. In the original production, she showed a great deal of cleavage, fulfilling Max’s request for ‘big tits’, which she thrusts under their noses, and her legs couldn’t have got further apart when she danced around the stage.

Marc Antonlin & cast in The Producers. Photo: Manuel Harlan

In this version of Umma, as portrayed by Joanna Woodward, she has a wonderful voice and is undoubtedly beautiful, but she dresses and dances demurely. It is hard to believe her audition would generate the famous punchline from Max: ‘We may be sitting but I can assure you we are giving you a standing ovation.’

So, despite the book (script) remaining untouched, the really noticeable change in the treatment of it is in the sexism. Patrick Marber was quoted in an interview as saying: ‘Things have changed a lot… and it is quite old fashioned in some of its attitudes. We’ve tried to do what we can with that.’ It seems that the attitudes to women have been the focus of his concern.

All the women who once showed legs and cleavage, here keep their flesh quite well covered by looser and less revealing garments than seen 25 years ago. I can see the sexism can be problematic for today’s audience, but then again The Producers is a period piece, so why not embrace it, as being of its time?

Mel Brooks is equal opportunities in his offensiveness. Just as he can laugh at Nazis and camp theatricality, he also sees the funny side of sex. His musical does not endorse sexism: his character Max was always seedy, as played by the great Zero Mostel in the film and Nathan Lane on Broadway. Here, perhaps acknowledging a (rightly) less tolerant time, he is presented as downright sleazy. Andy Nyman, unshaven with greasy hair plastered to his scalp and yellowing teeth, still gives Max a soft centre, but there is no way you could approve this man’s attitude to women. The women’s dancing was always a parody of the sexist fantasies of male directors, so there is no reason why we shouldn’t laugh if they were to ‘flaunt it’ in this iteration. It’s ironic that a production of a musical which doesn’t care who it offends should on this score, apparently, be so timid about causing offence.

Nevertheless, it’s great to see The Producers back on a London stage, and this production is a triumph that both pays homage to the original and sets the stage alight once more.

The Producers can be seen at the Garrick Theatre until 19 September 2026. Buy tickets directly from the theatre

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January 7, 2026

Theatre review: When We Are Married

Dull Yorkshire comedy rescued by cast

Donmar Warehouse

⭑⭑⭑

John Hodgkionson, Marc Wootton & Jim Howick in When We Are Married. Photo: Johan Persson

Bah ‘eck, I’m puzzled as to why director Tim Sheader chose to revive J B Priestley‘s When We Are Married. In its day, it was a very popular comedy, but that day has passed. Three couples celebrating their silver weddings find they were never legally married. There’s much potential for comedy but little of it is developed. Most of the fun seems to derive from puncturing the pomposity of these people, and having a laugh at their Yorkshire dialect. Fortunately, the cast are exceptional and they can generate laughter from the smallest facial flicker or vocal inflection, despite the mediocre script.

John Hodgkinson plays Joseph Helliwell, a domineering, self-righteous community leader, with relish. As his wife Maria, Siobhan Finneran is a delight: a snob who appears to be permanently sniffing something unpleasant under her nose. Mark Wootton is perfectly cast as a bombastic loudmouth, his beard almost as outsized as his voice. Sophie Thompson, as his submissive wife Annie, steals the acting honours with her exquisitely contemptuous looks and increasing confidence.

The final couple, Clara and Herbert Soppitt, are played by Samantha Spiro and Jim Howick. Herbert is a textbook—by which I mean clichéd—henpecked husband, but the dynamic is handled with real finesse: his repeated attempts to speak, only to be briskly cut off, are timed to perfection. Herbert’s tender moment with Annie is a rare hint that more could made of this marital crisis.

Instead, although all the couples are forced to reassess their relationships and view their partners afresh, the socialist J. B. Priestley concentrates on satirising the two pompous businessmen, while advancing a broader message about the need to value and respect women.

Director Tim Sheader has streamlined the play by cutting and consolidating roles: the maid and housekeeper, for instance, are merged into a single, gloriously disruptive character, played with gleeful, mischievous cackling by veteran performer Janice Connolly. Likewise, a newspaper reporter and photographer are combined, allowing Ron Cook to deliver some superb physical comedy as his increasingly inebriated character stumbles out of control—an act that may evoke fond memories, for those of a certain age, of the great Freddie Frinton.

The remaining supporting roles are all convincingly cast. Tori Allen-Martin brings far more nuance than expected to Lottie, who arrives to claim her newly single lover. Reuben Joseph and Rowan Robinson acquit themselves well in the thankless parts of the rather bland young couple, whose marriage-for-love is held up as a moral counterpoint. Leo Wringer is engaging as the priest tasked with untangling the marital chaos, beginning with calm authority before becoming progressively—and amusingly—exasperated. The reduced cast lends the production focus and momentum, sharpening the pace throughout.

That said, the script itself feels dated, and I’m not convinced it would survive without such a skilled ensemble to carry it over the finishing line. Comic sensibilities have shifted: contemporary audiences tend to favour sharper wit over broad humour and an exploration of transgression over a reliance on funny accents.

Imaginative production

Jim Howick, Sophie Thompson, Siobhan Finneran & Samantha Spiro in When We Are Married. Photo: Johan Persson

Even so, Sheader’s production is peppered with thoughtful and imaginative touches. I particularly enjoyed the way each half opens with a period song and closes with a contemporary one. The Biggest Aspidistra in the World, written around the time of the play, speaks to pride and status—and is echoed visually by the enormous aspidistra dominating Peter McKintosh’s largely naturalistic set. The first half ends with Beyoncé’s feminist anthem All the Single Ladies, signalling the freedoms now beckoning the women.

The second half opens with the music-hall number A Little of What You Fancy (Does You Good), written at the time the play is set and rich in a sexual innuendo sadly absent from Priestley’s text, hinting at possibilities that ultimately remain both unrealised and largely unaddressed. We depart the theatre to the strains of Bruno Mars’ celebratory Marry You, neatly puncturing the pomposity of the powerful. These musical bookends add a layer of commentary that the script alone mostly lacks.

I also have a fundamental problem with staging a play like this on a thrust stage. Too often, you experience a sense of theatrical FOMO. Sitting in one of the side blocks, I had my view completely obscured by an actor, for what must have been five minutes of Ron Cook’s comic business—quite possibly some of the funniest moments. I’ll never know. I might well have enjoyed the production more from a central seat.

While audience-surrounded staging can heighten intimacy—as demonstrated recently by The Lady from the Sea at the Bridge Theatre—in this instance I can’t help feeling the play would benefit from a traditional proscenium setup, with a single, shared viewpoint. It would certainly make life easier for the actors, who currently have to accommodate multiple sightlines.

Perhaps the production will transfer to a more conventional West End theatre. Judging by the largely enthusiastic reviews, it may well do so. Tim Sheader has an impressive track record from his time at the Open Air Theatre of successfully reviving classics and sending them on to the West End, much to the benefit of the balance sheet. He may repeat that success with this Donmar production. That said, I hope revivals of dated plays remain the exception. There is a place for revisiting a genuine classic but I don’t believe the Donmar is it. I hope Mr Sheader concentrates on the new work and inventive revivals of more recent plays that have characterised his time in charge there, such as Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, The Fear of 13, The Maids, and, one of my favourite plays of 2025, Intimate Apparel.

When We Are Married can be seen at the Donmar Warehouse until 7 February 2026.

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

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