Is it possible to have too much of a good thing?
I’d argue that, in the case of Barnum (newly rechristened Barnum – The Circus Musical), the 1980 Mark Bramble/Cy Coleman/Michael Stewart show that was a hit first for Jim Dale on Broadway, and then for Michael Crawford at the London Palladium in 1981, the answer is a definite yes.
This touring production – perhaps the last big gasp for the show before the stage version of the film behemoth The Greatest Showman hits in spring 2027 – is based on a 2024 actor-musician revival that took place at The Watermill in Newbury.
So, was I gripped? Was I enthralled by the circus entertainment? Was I enraptured by the nearly ever-present on-stage musicians?
In a word, no.
The show quickly bounces through the life of American circus entrepreneur Phineas Taylor Barnum: hoaxer, businessman, politician and promoter extraordinaire – and with rather more verisimilitude than The Greatest Showman even attempts.
But in the original production, Barnum was presented as an American hero walking the tightrope between success and failure. And famously, before the world of musical theatre first experienced falling chandeliers, helicopters and people whizzing past the dress circle on roller skates, he walked the literal tightrope across the stage of the Palladium – and, latterly, the Victoria Palace – every night.
The stage-within-a-stage set of this production gives our Barnum (Matt Rawle, at times wonderful, at others floppily relaxed, seeming as if he really wanted to be anywhere but on the stage of the New Wimbledon Theatre) a tightrope barely half the length of those in previous theatrical productions, meaning the jeopardy is negligible.
Mind you, the fact that there are so many actual circus performers and acrobats tumbling from the flies like some shoehorned-in out-take from Cirque du Soleil means that what should be the high point and finale of Act One falls pretty flat anyway.
But I think my REAL issue with this production is its lack of light and shade.
Both literally and metaphorically.
It’s bright. The lights shine out at you, illuminating the fake proscenium right from the start, meaning there really isn’t anywhere else to go. Once that bolt is shot, it just keeps getting shot again and again – and it gets old very quickly.
The other big problem is caused by the actor-musician cast.
During a company number, when everyone is supposed to be on stage anyway, this isn’t an issue. But more than once, a tender scene between Barnum and his wife Charity (the wonderful and multi-talented Monique Young) is completely undercut by having a line of musicians standing six feet behind them.
As if the director acknowledges that this isn’t a good thing, on occasion they’re placed behind a curtain, which at least hides them from view. The problem of having multiple musicians with multiple instruments, all at potentially different volumes, isn’t one that is ever successfully solved, however, and there are plenty of times when the vocal lines become completely drowned out.
Of the rest of the cast, Penny Ashmore gives us a beautifully defined Jenny Lind, and Dominique Plater is a barnstorming presence as Joice Heth – alleged by Barnum to be the 161-year-old wet nurse of George Washington, but actually an enslaved African American woman who formed the foundation of his first fortune until she died, probably aged around 80, in 1836.
Fergus Rattigan is miscast as General Tom Thumb.
Was I emotionally engaged by this production? Certainly not in the way I was by Cameron Mackintosh’s touring version just over a decade ago, starring Brian Conley.
Did I hate it? No.
But I certainly wouldn’t want to have to sit through it again.
New Wimbledon Theatre
Book: Mark Bramble
Music: Cy Coleman
Lyrics: Michael Stewart
Starring: Matt Rawle, Monique Young, Penny Ashmore, Dominique Plater, Fergus Rattigan, and full supporting cast
Dates: 29th September to 3rd October 2026
Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes, including interval
Date Seen: Tuesday 29th September 2026