There’s emotion aplenty in the new musical Redcliffe, which has just opened at Southwark Playhouse’s main stage. I say new, but it’s already had a couple of workshops, and it shows. The dialogue is funny where it needs to be, moving where it needs to be, and out of the way when it’s time for the songs to do the heavy lifting.
There’s a lot to like here, and I’m willing to concede that, had I not been jammed into a cramped seat between two sweaty audience members on one of the hottest evenings of the year, I might have responded rather differently to the show’s emotional pull — though I doubt my overall opinion would have changed that much.
Redcliffe, for which Jordan Luke Gage has written book, music, and lyrics — and in which he also stars — is billed as ‘inspired by true events’. The reason for that phrasing becomes more apparent later, but the story, as told, goes something like this.
It’s winter 1753, coming up to Christmas. Footman William Critchard (a very good Jordan Luke Gage) has lost his job and returns home to his widowed mother (the show-stealing Rebecca Lock) and sister (the spunky Jess Douglas Welsh) for the festive season.
Teaching himself to read, he heads to the pub where he meets sailor Richard Arnold (a suitably dashing Daniel Krikler), with whom he strikes up a friendship.
Arnold invites him to a party after which Critchard steals a kiss, embarrassing Arnold.
The two later go walking and, as a storm comes in, shelter in the Redcliffe caves where they make out. It’s all very sweet. Unfortunately, they are spotted by the landlord of a local pub, who reports them to the authorities.
William is tried and seems likely to escape conviction when the prosecution suddenly acquires the evidence it lacked in the form of love letters sent to Critchard by Arnold.
They are found guilty and hanged.
I should have cared. I know I should, but I didn’t.
I remained more of a passive observer than an emotionally involved participant, and when that happens the mind starts to wander. You begin asking questions. Why were people waltzing at a soirée in 1753, a good forty years before the dance arrived in Britain? How cold could the caves really have been, given it was the middle of December? Trivial points perhaps, but revealing ones when the drama itself isn’t fully holding your attention.
The heat in the auditorium notwithstanding, I think the problem lies in the first half hour of the book, which still feels in need of tightening. I simply didn’t connect strongly enough with William early on.
That said, the piece improves considerably as it goes on, and there is unquestionably potential here.
I also found myself wanting to know more about how the score was intended to deepen the emotional relationship at the centre of the story. The songs certainly carry much of the production’s emotional weight, but I’m not convinced they always succeed in making the romance feel fully lived-in or dramatically persuasive.
And I rather wish I hadn’t googled the story afterwards to discover what really happened.
As written, this presents itself as a rather charming gay love story about two men of roughly the same age finding release in one another’s arms away from the harshness of the world around them, only to be condemned by the society in which they live.
In reality, William Critchard was a footman of about twenty, while Richard Arnold was the sixty-year-old landlord of The Lamb and Flag pub, and their encounter took place not in romantic caves but at The Swann Inn in central Bristol.
That does not, of course, mean the relationship lacked genuine feeling. But the musical’s reshaping of the story raises interesting questions about romanticisation and historical framing, and I’m not entirely convinced it confronts those questions as directly as it might.
Book, Music, & Lyrics: Jordan Luke Gage
Director: Paul Foster
Cast includes: Jordan Luke Gage, Rebecca Lock, Daniel Krikler, Jess Douglas Welsh, Adrian Hansel, Melissa Jacques, Jade Johnson, Phoebe Kyriakopoulos, Joseph Peacock, Stephen Serlin
Until: 4th July 2026
Running time: 2hrs 10 minutes including interval
Date Seen: Thursday 28th May 2026
Photo credit: Pamela Raith