Tag Archives: Hadley Fraser

Review – My Fair Lady, Festival Theatre, Chichester, 23rd July 2026

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Having hosted more than its fair share of disappointing productions over the last few years, Chichester desperately needed to get back on track with a big, crowd pleasing summer show to help restore its reputation; and the decision to mount its first ever production of that remarkable musical, My Fair Lady, was a winner. Without doubt this is Chichester’s best production since Oliver! and possibly for years before that too. No one could have turned their hand to delivering a big successful musical production for Chichester like director Rachel Kavanaugh, ten years on from her sensational Half a Sixpence. And who would have thought this old warhorse of a show could pack a Thursday matinee in July so that the huge Festival Theatre was officially sold out?

Kavanaugh’s amazing gift is to create a show that’s familiar to 90% of its audience and make us feel as though this is the first time we’ve ever seen it. This My Fair Lady is fresh, funny, exciting; full of unexpected treats and insightful characterisations, spectacular choreography, glorious harmonies, and song after song that will keep you singing this outstanding score for days to come. Peter McKintosh’s creative set makes great use of the revolving stage, combined with Howard Harrison’s superb lighting design; take the Embassy Ball, for example, so cleverly and concisely conjured up by just some chairs positioned around the edge of the stage with some well-placed lighting.

McKintosh’s costume design is also outstanding, with immaculately created Edwardian gowns and evening wear contrasting with the drab flower sellers and dustmen. The Ascot racegoers outfits are inspired by the classic Cecil Beaton designs but with an eye to this production’s specific colour motifs that crop up again and again; the use of purple in this show, for the flowers, the lighting, the confetti and Eliza’s dress is both beautiful and strangely emotional.

Lerner and Loewe pulled out all the stops when they wrote My Fair Lady; every single one of its sixteen or so songs is a classic, and the trick, which this production nails absolutely, is to perform them so that they both tickle our nostalgia with something comfortably recognisable but also give us insights so that they reveal something new. This is thanks to both the brilliance of the individual performers and the intelligence of the direction. In Wouldn’t It Be Loverly you genuinely envision poor deprived Eliza experiencing unlimited chocolate and warmth because in Keziah Ibe’s fantastic performance it’s her imagination that drives her singing. When Ms Ibe performs Show Me with her infatuated Freddy, he tries to answer back to all her musical demands but she won’t allow him a word in edgeways in a gloriously choreographed “battle of the sexes” routine. And when Higgins concludes the show with I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face the insights into his character are so profound that there is scarcely a dry eye in the house. That’s just three examples of how you can push the boundaries of understanding whilst remaining completely faithful and respectful of the original.

The cast are outstanding throughout. The ensemble are magnificent with both their singing and dancing; Joe Henry, Kody Mortimer, Jonathan Bourne and Nic Cain set the bar very high from the opening moments with their funny, sensitive and beautifully sung accompaniment to Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, and Nicholas Duncan and TJ Lloyd lead the dustmen’s ensemble in Doolittle’s two big numbers with terrific energy and musicality. Belinda Lang is a hilariously disapproving Mrs Higgins, caustically withering with her every pronouncement, and Finty Williams makes a marvellously sensible Mrs Pearce, whom you sense is just one sentence away from giving Higgins a well-deserved telling-off.

Ben Culleton makes the most of On the Street Where You Live as a totally entranced Freddy, delightfully hapless and hopeless but so incredibly good-natured about it. The always marvellous Tony Jayawardena gives a sprightly and not too eccentric performance as Pickering, luxuriating in his elegant housecoat and unexpectedly knowledgeable about ladies’ couture. I always think one of the most challenging problems of My Fair Lady is how to make the character of Alfred P Doolittle credible and funny without careering into pantomime, and Gary Milner is simply brilliant in the role, delivering a spot-on level of cheek, occasionally breaking the fourth wall. He’s like the engaging uncle who used to make you laugh as a kid with his little winks and playful approach. Stephen Mear’s choreography for Mr Milner is so well judged, giving the ensemble two full-blown big routines whilst allowing Mr M to concentrate on his jaunty walks and character-led reactions. Choreographically, the outstanding moment of the show is With a Little Bit of Luck, an immaculate showpiece crammed with humour. I’ve never seen pewter tankardography before, and it’s something we need more of.

The show does, of course, rely heavily on its two leads and here we have some truly inspired casting. Higgins is played by Hadley Fraser, whom I have never seen in musical theatre before, and he’s extraordinary. There’s no doubting that this Higgins is a wretched, grown-up spoilt brat, totally lacking any social graces, and an embarrassment to everyone around him. This is played to full comic effect in I’m an Ordinary Man, where he literally cavorts around the stage, reliving all the aspects of womanhood that deeply disturb him. In fact, he’s profoundly damaged by his own personality. I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face is not mere regret for the way he has behaved towards Eliza, but it shows us how he lacks the mental resources to go on without her. I loved the final, deliciously inconclusive tableau of the production, with Eliza in the driver’s seat and Higgins a blubbering mess lower down the pecking order. If she does stay with him (and that’s no foregone conclusion) there’s no doubt who’ll be wearing the trousers in that household.

Rachel Kavanaugh had the courage and foresight to cast the unknown Charlie Stemp in Half a Sixpence ten years ago and look what a brilliantly brave decision that was. In My Fair Lady she has cast Keziah Ibe as Eliza in her professional stage debut, a massive responsibility on young shoulders, but once again under Ms Kavanaugh’s tutelage, a star is born. Ms Ibe has a great voice – that’s a given; but she is so expressive in her singing, and her facial expressions have such eloquence that she delivers a performance of constant surprises and delights. A great feel for both the comedy and the pathos of the role, she truly is the most remarkable find; and she brings the house down with her conversation and behaviour at Ascot. You’re always on her side, and I can’t wait to see her career develop.

Two years after Oliver! Chichester is properly back on form with this remarkable revival. Surely a West End transfer must come its way?

Five Alive, Let Theatre Thrive!

Review – Magic, Chichester Festival Theatre, 9th May 2026

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David Haig’s new play concerns the perhaps unlikely but definitely true story of the friendship and association between the brains behind Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and showman and trickster extraordinaire, Harry Houdini. Conan Doyle wasn’t a brilliant escapologist, and Houdini couldn’t write a detective story for toffee, but they did have a shared interest in the world of Spiritualism.

Having lost his son Kingsley shortly after the end of the First World War, Conan Doyle spent the subsequent years desperately believing that he could stay in contact with him through the services of a medium – the renowned Mina Crandon. Houdini, who knew everything about creating illusion, desperately wanted to believe in Spiritualism and would have loved for seances to be true; but he was always able to disprove them. It’s the balance between Conan Doyle, the ultimate believer, and Houdini, the ultimate deceiver, that’s at the heart of the play.

There’s undoubtedly a good story to be told here, but sadly Magic isn’t it. It has a strangely empty feel, as though it knows it doesn’t have much to tell us, and to compensate, what it does tell us is delivered at a snail’s pace. The production allows itself to be sidetracked by enormous amounts of padding, varying from unnecessary musical interludes, Houdini doing a few tricks, and the slowest scene changes this side of the A27. There’s only one scene which contains any drama or tension – which is where Houdini exposes Mina Crandon (an excellently vitriolic Jade Williams) as a fraud, leaving Conan Doyle devastated as he realises he has been tricked. Whilst the characterisations are thoroughly believable, and the acting is first rate, the play and staging are so heavy going and ponderous that they drag the story down with it. And whilst Haig has a nice understanding of the warp and weft of conversation, the text feels like it would be better read than acted.

The music-hall setting unbalances the show by presenting it wholly from the perspective of Houdini’s world, with nothing at all from the Conan Doyle world; and whilst the members of the musical ensemble perform well, they simply distract from the main thrust of the play. In fact, this would be far better as a four or five-hander (the Conan Doyles, the Houdinis and Mina) in a more intimate setting and with greater intensity of dialogue.

David Haig plays Conan Doyle with Edwardian dignity and propriety, and a gentle sense of humour. He embodies respectability in contrast with Hadley Fraser’s Houdini, who accentuates the brash American-ness and essential shallowness of his profession. This difference continues with the enjoyably contrasting Claire Price as the very correct but repressed Jean Conan Doyle and Jenna Augen as the friendly and content Bess Houdini. There’s a brief scene where Bess reveals how Jean turned away from musical performance herself in order to be the literary wife, and we get a glimpse of the sacrifices Jean has made for the greater good – there’s an intriguing dynamic here which is annoyingly just left dangling.

Whilst the play does attempt to explore the lengths to which one can go to come to terms with grief and loss, it never truly fulfils its potential, and the distracting and cumbersome production doesn’t help.

3-starsThree-sy Does It!

Review – The Deep Blue Sea, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 27th July 2019

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One of our favourite annual treats is to enjoy a weekend in Chichester with friends and family, seeing a couple of shows, having a lovely lunch in the Minerva Brasserie, followed by late night sharing boards in the Minerva Grill, and a scrummy Sunday breakfast at the Spires Café. Well, we did all of those things last weekend. It was great.

You want more detail? I guess I should be more specific about the plays we saw. For the matinee, we had tickets to see Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea. Perhaps surprisingly, this is the second Chichester production of this play in eight years; we saw Philip Franks’ production in 2011, and it was thoroughly engrossing; a simple tale, told simply. But I have a memory that it was swamped by the largesse of the Festival Theatre; would a more intimate production in the Minerva be more successful? (Answer: Yes.)

The play was first produced in 1952, at a time when Britain was still attempting to shake off the drabness of Second World War rationing, drabness and general gloom. Men had come back from the war with what we would now know as PTSD, many struggling to find a way to fit back into life and with many women accordingly finding it difficult to cope with their menfolk. Clearly, unless you were a) well-off and b) remarkably well adjusted, it was a tense time for all. Whether it was in a sudden blaze of passion or a slowly-burning sense of growing desire we’re never really sure, but what we do know is that Hester Collyer had thrown away her life as a judge’s wife, with all its comfort, status and solidity, and run off with a ne’er-do-well alcoholic, Freddie Page, who’d been a pilot in the war.

But when the fun, danger and ardour of their affair starts to wane, there’s not much left for Hester to enjoy in life, and the play, famously, starts with her being rescued from a suicide attempt (by gassing herself in front of the fire) by her landlady and neighbours. If she’d had put a shilling in the meter, she’d be dead. The rest of the play examines Hester’s life over the course of one day; from a semi-reconciliation with her husband, desperate niggling arguments with her boyfriend, and reaching an understanding with another of the residents, Mr Miller (not Doctor, please), in whom she sees a fellow recipient of life’s great booby-prize. When it’s time to turn the lights out at the end of the day, will she resist the temptation to make good her suicide attempt of the previous night? If you don’t know the answer to that, I’m not going to tell you!

This is one of those plays that it’s impossible to update; in fact, the stronger you can build up that distinct post-war, 1950s poverty-filled London gloom, the better. Peter McKintosh’s set successfully conjures up a claustrophobic prison of a flat at the top of the stairs in a big multiple-occupancy house, where the landlady Mrs Elton (a nicely judged performance by Denise Black) spends morning, noon and night in pinny and housecoat, perpetually attending to the needs of her tenants, hearing their secrets and then blabbing about them to the neighbours. The all-important gas fire sits starkly against one side of the stage, an ugly, functional installation with no pretence to homely cosiness, quietly reminding us all of its power to end a life.

This new production stars Nancy Carroll as Hester Collyer, in an excellent performance that makes you feel that, if only the stars had aligned slightly differently, this Hester would have had a life of glamour and refinement. With an air of calm, resigned resilience, it’s a remarkably spirited portrayal of a suicidal character – she seems to get over it all rather quickly, and rises to the challenges of the day with surprising strength. By contrast, Hadley Fraser’s Freddie Page cuts a much more pathetic figure; a spoilt brat of a wastrel who’s relied on his looks to get him through but when times get tough has no inner resources to back it up. It’s another excellent performance, bringing out all the character’s immaturity and irresponsibility, as he organises long drinking sessions with his mates and refuses to take the blame for his contribution to Hester’s unhappiness. When the first Act finished I wanted to shout down to the stage, Leave him, Hester, he’s not worth it, hun, but I’m not sure if she would have taken my advice.

Reliable Chichester stalwart Matthew Cottle gives a strong, unsentimental performance as Miller, the once-doctor who still helps with medical advice in the household despite no longer being allowed to practise; although in seedy 1952 North West London, a resident medic would always be in demand. There’s also a toe-curlingly enjoyable scene between Hester and Ralph Davis’ Philp Welch, one of those agonisingly patronising moments when a younger man tries to explain to an older person where they’ve gone wrong in life and what they can do to turn things around. Keeping a lid on her frustration and annoyance, you sense it’s all Hester can do not to stuff the gas tube up his nose and shove a shilling in for good measure.

This production received generally excellent reviews and I can see why. Although the pace of the play is quite slow, the attention to detail is impressive, and the commitment and dignity of the performances is a delight, even if the horrors of what they’re going through isn’t. Its final performance was last Saturday night and I don’t know if it’s going to have a life hereafter…but it was a very enjoyable and thought-provoking production.