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