The Sound of Music - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

*****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

Directed by Nikolai Foster

Molly Lynch

It’s been 11 years since the Curve was filled with the sound of music but in a radically imagined and invigorating staging, Nikolai Foster delivers possibly the finest interpretation of the Broadway classic to have played on this side of the Atlantic.

Before a word has been sung, the curtain rises on Michael Taylor’s set that is truly breathtaking. The Austrian mountains have been ingeniously crafted onto the vast Curve space, complete with lofty peaks, rolling mists and a trickling stream. The Nuns sing us into the Preludium before Molly Lynch as Maria appears at the top of the mountain, singing the title number as she picks her way down the hillside. This stunning image together with Lynch's pitch-perfect vocals deliver but one of the enchanting moments that are scattered throughout the evening, as Lynch reveals new depths to Maria’s complexities.

Foster offers us an eye-popping Maria, more pop-star than postulant. Lynch may give us a guitar-driven version of My Favourite Things, yet she can still portray a young woman capable of a blisteringly humbling honesty in front of Joanna Riding’s marvellous Mother Abbess. Not only that, hers is an an intuitively empathetic and compassionate connection with the von Trapp children. Truly a performance of musical theatre genius.

Mirroring the romantic partnership of last year’s My Fair Lady at Curve, David Seadon-Young is again the story's romantic foil, this time as the handsome, widowered Captain Georg von Trapp. Whether it’s chemistry or electricity that powers the romance between him and Maria is hard to tell. Whatever - the love that emerges between the pair is palpable, with Seadon-Young mirroring Lynch’s craft in musical theatre. And his Edelweiss is a stunner.

But this show is not all about the powerhouse couple of Maria and Georg. The calibre of Foster’s company is quite simply off the scale. Joanna Riding brings a fabulous combination of wit and wisdom to the Mother Abbess. As she delivers her truly blessed voice to this most blessed of characters, her Climb Ev’ry Mountain lifts the roof off both the Abbey and the Curve.

Minal Patel’s Max Detweiler captures the man’s complexities in a fine display of compassionate pomposity and with a fine singing voice too. In one of the story’s most two-dimensional characters, Faye Brooks has the tough gig of playing Elsa Schraeder, a woman who has to manage the pain of her unreturned love for Georg. Allowed only minimal dialogue to tell her story, Brooks’s acting is first-class. And in the Captain’s household, Rachel Izen’s housekeeper Frau Schmidt is another modest gem of a performance, cleverly capturing Schmidt’s starched, matriarchal kindness.

Ebony Molina choreographs with a thoughtful flair - and in the build up to the penultimate scene's Music Festival in Salzburg where the concert hall is of course packed full of evil Nazis, there is just a hint of Springtime For Hitler in her routine to herald the arrival of the von Trapp Family Singers 

Arguably the finest brand new production to be opening in the UK this Christmas, The Sound of Music in Leicester is unmissable.

Runs until 17th January 2026

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

My Fair Lady - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

*****

Music by Frederick Loewe

Lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner

Directed by Nikolai Foster

Molly Lynch

Yet again the good people of Leicester are blessed with the most stunning festive gift from the city’s Curve theatre. This year it is Nikolai Foster’s sumptuous production of My Fair Lady that sparkles.

Molly Lynch, who is no stranger to Foster and Curve following her stunning Betty Schaefer in the venue’s Sunset Boulevard a few years back, now steps up to her rightful place as a leading lady, giving the most powerful yet sensitive interpretation of Eliza Doolitle to have been seen on these shores in years. Lynch has a voice that can capture both power and pathos. We are first treated to her excellence in Wouldn’t It Be Loverly and as her character tumbles into perfect received pronunciation with The Rain In Spain, her development is as seamless and as charming as her voice is sweet. From there it’s into I Could Have Danced All Night and on glancing around the Curve’s audience, the smiles on the audience's faces defined the joy that Lynch was bringing in her take on this, one of musical theatre’s most enigmatic women.

My Fair Lady of course revolves around the relationship between Eliza and Henry Higgins, and with David Seadon-Young’s playing the professor of linguistics the pair are perfectly matched. His is a sensitive take on the emotionally crippled academic and rarely has chauvinism sounded so charming as in Seadon-Young’s interpretation. As he implores the world to fit his view of how things should be, firstly with Why Can’t The English and later with A Hymn To Him, the range of his singing is just delightful. And then with I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face, Seadon unlocks the man’s complexities and vulnerabilities with a heartbreaking depth.

Foster has assembled a company of talent to match the two leads. Minal Patel is in fine form as Colonel Pickering, while Steve Furst keeps the flame of old-fashioned sexism burning brightly with his hilarious take on Alfred Doolittle. Get Me To The Church On Time is one of the canon’s comedy highlights that sets the audience up for the traumatic ups and downs of the story's final act. Djavan Van de Fliert is a marvellously voiced Freddy Eynsford-Hill, while Sarah Moyle playing both Freddy’s mother and Higgins’ housekeeper Mrs Pearce is equally en pointe. The venerable Cathy Tyson as Henry’s wise mother brings the perfect weighting of gravitas to her small but critical role in the evening’s proceedings.

Michael Taylor’s lavish set designs fill the Curve’s vast space with height, depth and ingenuity, Mark Henderson’s lighting complements the visuals perfectly, while out of sight (apart from a delightful centre-stage cameo at the Embassy Ball), George Dyer’s nine-piece band make fine work of the classic score. Jo Goodwin's inspired choreography is at its finest in the company numbers, with Get Me To The Church On Time evolving into a spectacle of perfectly rehearsed movement.

Playing until the new year, My Fair Lady at the Curve is quite possibly the finest show to be found this Christmas. Don’t miss it!

Runs until 4th January 2025

Photo credit: Marc Brenner

Scrooge The Musical - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester

****

Music, lyrics and book by Leslie Bricusse

Directed by Nikolai Foster

Jasper Britton

Made At Curve is a brand name that is growing in traction. Producers Michael Harrison and David Ian have a canny eye for what will make a successful show and Scrooge The Musical is their latest partnership with Leicester’s Curve that sees the theatre’s Artistic Director Nikolai Foster helm a thoughtfully crafted take on the Leslie Bricusse show.

It all makes for classic festive fayre with Bricusse’s original work, last seen some 15 years ago, being subtly re-engineered for this revival. Jasper Britton (and Curve Board Member) heads the cast in the title role, convincing us throughout of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge. As he is visited by the spirit of his dead business partner Jacob Marley and then the three ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, we believe in Britton’s Scrooge learning to sip the milk of human kindness and to redeem himself.

Around Britton there are no co-leading roles, rather an ensemble of wonderful quality. Notable in the company are an enchanting Lauren Stroud who doubles up as both the fiancée of the young Ebenezer in times past and as the current wife of his nephew Harry. Anton Stephans turns in a crackingly fizzing take as the Ghost Of Christmas Present, while Danny-Boy Hatchard as local lad Tom Jenkins is also particularly striking.

The show has been put together with a view to taking the spirit of future Christmases on the road (Harrison and Ian are no fools) – and Michael Taylor’s ingenious designs, brilliantly  lit by Ben Cracknell, capture the gritty flamboyance of London’s Cheapside, the towering misery of Scrooge’s office and the impoverished warmth of the Cratchit household. No expense has been spared on the creative talent throughout the production – Sarah Travis has (as ever) done a wondrous job arranging Bricusse’s score, which on the evening is delivered by Neil MacDonald’s eight piece band. Local legend Stephen Mear returns to his home town to choreograph, bringing a magic to those numbers that allow a spectacle in movement – the Toy Ballet and The Milk of Human Kindness being two particularly ingenious routines (pantomime aficionados should look out for the two dames in the latter).

The musical makes no bones about the darkness of Dickens’ tale and Scrooge’s journey of redemption. The ghosts are scary (Karen Mann’s Marley is particularly ghoulish), with Britton fleshing out Scrooge’s journey of redemption in a way that highlights the character’s own childhood of emotional abuse and neglect.

There is perceptive stuff here, from both the leading man and Nikolai Foster, and by rights the show should be garnering 5 stars. But it is Britton’s singing that is perhaps the show’s only flaw. The actor’s eminent background has been hard won on stage and deservedly so, but his expertise stems primarily from the spoken word. While this Scrooge is undoubtedly believable, commanding our empathy, one cannot help but speculate how a different actor, who perhaps has a Valjean or the Phantom under his belt, might take Bricusse’s songs to their fullest potential. But… these are early days for the production and Foster is a shrewd director – it may well be that come mid-December Britton will inhabit the musical numbers with a more majestic vocal confidence and presence.

The story here is classic and heart-warming and it says much for the city of Leicester that a multi-racial cast, evidently drawn from a mix of ethnic backgrounds, can so lovingly tell a story that celebrates an English heritage. Scrooge The Musical is another Christmas cracker at the Curve.

Runs until 7th January

Photo credit: Pamela Raith