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 answer is a definite yes.
The 1980 musical by Mark Bramble, Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart was a hit first for Jim Dale on Broadway, and then for Michael Crawford at the London Palladium in 1981.
This touring production — perhaps the show’s last big gasp before the stage version of the film behemoth The Greatest Showman arrives in spring 2027 — is based on the 2024 actor-musician revival at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury.
So, was I gripped? Was I enthralled by the circus entertainment? Was I enraptured by the almost ever-present musicians on stage?
In a word, no.
The show races 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.
In the original production, Barnum was presented as an American hero walking the tightrope between success and failure. Famously, before musical theatre audiences encountered falling chandeliers, helicopters and performers whizzing past the dress circle on roller skates, there was Michael Crawford walking a literal tightrope across the stage of the London Palladium, and later the Victoria Palace, night after night.
In this production, the stage-within-a-stage set provides our Barnum (Matt Rawle, at times wonderful, at others so floppily relaxed that he seems to wish himself anywhere but the New Wimbledon Theatre) with a tightrope barely half the length of those in earlier productions. The sense of jeopardy is consequently negligible.
Mind you, with so many circus performers and acrobats tumbling from the flies like some shoehorned-in outtake from Cirque du Soleil, what should be the high point and finale of Act One falls rather 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. Relentlessly bright. The lights blaze out at the audience, illuminating the fake proscenium from the very beginning, leaving the production nowhere else to go. Once that particular bolt has been shot, it simply gets fired again and again. The effect soon wears thin.
The other major problem lies with the actor-musician cast.
During company numbers, 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 multitalented Monique Young) is completely undercut by a line of musicians standing barely six feet behind them.
As though acknowledging the problem, the director occasionally places the musicians behind a curtain, which at least hides them from view. But the difficulty of balancing multiple musicians playing multiple instruments, all at potentially different volumes, is never satisfactorily resolved. Too often, the vocal lines are simply drowned out.
Among the supporting cast, Penny Ashmore gives us a beautifully defined Jenny Lind, while Dominique Plater is a barnstorming presence as Joice Heth — whom Barnum claimed was the 161-year-old former wet nurse of George Washington. In reality, she was an enslaved African American woman whose exploitation helped lay the foundations of his first fortune. She died in 1836, probably aged around 80.
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 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 supporting cast
Until 3rd October 2026
Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes, including interval