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Before The Greatest Showman turned P.T. Barnum into a household name for a new generation, there was Barnum. Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart’s musical first reached Broadway in 1980, with Michael Crawford’s Tony Award-winning performance making the role synonymous with theatrical showmanship. Now, with Come Alive! and a forthcoming stage adaptation of The Greatest Showman, the question inevitably arises: does Barnum still have something to say?
While this impressively mounted production, transferred from The Watermill Theatre and directed capably by Jonathan O'Boyle, the answer is complicated.
As a piece of theatre, it is an enjoyably polished showcase for an immensely talented ensemble of actor-musicians, combining circus, live music and theatrical sleight of hand into an evening that on a box ticking note, delivers what it sets out to do. However, as a musical drama, it struggles to find the emotional substance beneath all that spectacle.
The collaboration with Zippos Circus certainly gives the production an impressive sense of scale. The circus elements are integrated rather than feeling bolted on, with some genuinely spectacular trapeze work providing one of the evening’s standout moments.
Scene changes become miniature acts of circus juggling, with performers manipulating props and instruments as the world of the show transforms around them. It gives the production a constant sense of movement and invention.
The actor-musician concept is equally successful. There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about watching the company create the world around them rather than relying on a huge orchestra hidden beneath the stage.
The score itself is a quaint and wholesome collection of musical theatre numbers which, at times, made me feel like I was wandering down Main Street USA. If you know, you know.
And then there is One Brick at a Time, which is barnstormingly good and provides the shows only true moment of musical theatre magic
From a performance point of view, Matt Rawle captures the humbuggery of Barnum with relish. There is an appropriate twinkle in his eye and a sense that this is a man who knows exactly how to sell a tall tale. Yet his diction occasionally lets him down in the patter-heavy numbers, making some of Barnum’s quick paced delivery, difficult to follow. This is particularly unfortunate given that Barnum is, by nature, a huckster: a man whose greatest talent is spinning a story and convincing people to believe it.
The romantic relationship between Barnum and Charity should provide the emotional center of the story, but there is little romantic chemistry between Rawle and Monique Young. The result is an oddly emotionally cold relationship, and because we are never fully convinced by what these two people see in one another, the stakes of their eventual separation don't land with the force they should. Sadly, this is a fatal flaw from a writing and directing perspective, that I'm afraid it never recovers from.
Young is given something of a thankless task as Charity Barnum, but she sells the musical material with warmth and conviction. It is the character rather than the performer who feels underwritten. When Charity’s story reaches its conclusion, the moment feels surprisingly unceremonious, robbing it of the emotional impact it ought to have.
The same problem extends to Jennie Lind. Penny Ashmore is perfectly capable in the role, but the character feels both underwritten and somewhat dated, falling into stereotype, while the relationship between her and Barnum is undercooked
This lack of narrative drive becomes particularly noticeable in the first act, which feels overlong despite the production’s energetic staging. There are plenty of things to look at, but not always enough dramatic momentum to make us desperately want to know what happens next.
And that perhaps gets to the heart of Barnum. P.T. Barnum built his career on giving audiences exactly what they wanted: spectacle, sensation and a good story. But like Barnum himself, it can sometimes feel more interested in the surface than what lies underneath.
With The Greatest Showman having introduced Barnum to a new generation through a very different kind of theatrical spectacle, and with a stage adaptation now on the horizon, I do wonder whether Barnum increasingly belongs in the theatrical museum alongside the curiosities he might have collected on the way
⭐⭐⭐
Reviewed by Alex Farley
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