Barnum at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre review: big top spectacle, but where’s the story?
★★★⯪☆
I didn’t leave Barnum humming a single tune. Is that the show’s fault, or mine?
If the story feels familiar, that’s because it is. Long before Hugh Jackman turned P.T. Barnum into a pop-singing visionary in The Greatest Showman, this musical offered a softer, more old-fashioned version of the same rise-to-fame tale: a 19th-century showman building an empire on charm, exaggeration and sheer force of will, while his personal life quietly strains under the weight of it.
There’s something slightly off when a production throws everything at you — fire, acrobats, marching bands, even a full-sized elephant — and yet, somewhere between the confetti blasts and the tightrope walk, you find your attention quietly slipping out the side door. This is, after all, a musical that bills itself as “the greatest show on earth.” And in purely visual terms, it may well be. But spectacle, as P.T. Barnum himself might have admitted, is only half the con.
At Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, this touring revival arrives in a blaze of colour and ambition. From the moment the lights go up, you are plunged into velvet drapes, painted balconies and brassy showmanship. Jonathan Lipman’s set does much of the heavy lifting, its scale so assured that it encloses you inside the circus rather than simply suggesting one. Performers swing, tumble and spring from every direction. At one point, an elephant, clearly artificial but impressively handled, trundles on, as if to confirm that subtlety has firmly left the building.
And that is both the strength and the problem. There is simply too much happening, too often, for too long. At times, it feels like a production with ADHD, always reaching for the next distraction before the last one has had time to land.
Lee Mead, stepping into the red tailcoat of the great showman, is precisely what you’d hope for: charismatic, vocally assured, and entirely at home commanding a stage of this scale. It’s easy to see why he won Any Dream Will Do and built a West End career in shows like Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Chicago. He has that rare, slightly old-fashioned star quality — the ability to make even the broadest material feel anchored by sheer force of presence. When he sings, the theatre fills; when he steps onto the tightrope (yes, really), the audience collectively holds its breath.
He is well matched by Monique Young as Charity, the long-suffering wife who is, depending on your tolerance for musical-theatre archetypes, either the emotional backbone of the piece or a walking relic of outdated storytelling. Young brings warmth and steel to the role, but the writing does her few favours. Charity exists in a peculiar dramatic limbo: endlessly supportive, briefly indignant, and ultimately defined by how quickly she forgives. It’s less a character arc than a narrative convenience. It is difficult not to notice how quickly the story moves past her, or how firmly it belongs to an older idea of greatness, one in which the woman’s role is to steady the man and then disappear from view.
Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, played by Penny Ashmore, brings a welcome jolt of glamour and vocal finesse. She sings with clarity, moves with ease and accompanies herself on the harp, but the subplot built around her feels both underdeveloped and oddly inevitable. The emotional stakes never quite settle before the next spectacle takes over.
The ensemble, meanwhile, are nothing short of extraordinary. This is a company that sings, dances, plays instruments, performs circus acts, and occasionally appears to defy gravity for good measure. One minute they’re a marching band, the next they’re airborne acrobats. It’s hard not to admire the sheer stamina on display. If talent alone could guarantee greatness, Barnum would be untouchable.
But talent can only do so much. The narrative unfolds in fragments, moving briskly from one episode to the next without allowing much to land. Characters appear, make an impression, and vanish. Emotional turning points arrive with little weight and even less consequence.
And the score, by Cy Coleman with lyrics by Michael Stewart, rarely asserts itself. It is energetic and busy, but difficult to recall afterwards. There are no clear showstoppers, no melodies that carry beyond the theatre. It settles into a kind of musical potpourri, pleasant, well made, and faintly elusive. You admire it while it’s happening, then struggle to recall it five minutes later.
What does remain is the sense of overload. Watching Barnum feels like a theatrical sugar rush. It dazzles at first, then starts to tire, and by the end you are left wondering what, exactly, held it all together.That may, of course, be the point. Barnum built an empire on spectacle and distraction, on keeping audiences entertained enough not to question what lay beneath. In that sense, the musical is oddly faithful to its subject. It dazzles and distracts, just long enough that you almost forget to ask what it’s really saying.
Almost.
Because once the lights come up, after a well-earned standing ovation for a cast who give this everything, you’re left with a curious aftertaste. You’ve seen something undeniably impressive, a feat of staging, choreography and performance that rarely lets up. But you may also find yourself wondering whether, beneath all the spectacle, there was ever quite enough substance to hold it together.
A dazzling circus, then. Just not quite the greatest show on earth.
Barnum plays Aylesbury Waterside Theatre until 28 March, then continues touring the UK and Ireland until 31 October 2026.
Information and tickets : https://www.kenwright.com/productions/barnum-2026-uk-tour/
Elena Leo is the Culture & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
