The touring revival of Barnum has reached the New Wimbledon Theatre, and the London reviews are in. This is the Watermill Theatre production, directed by Jonathan O’Boyle with choreography by Oti Mabuse, now out on the road with Matt Rawle back as the showman P.T. Barnum and Monique Young as his wife, Charity. Cy Coleman’s musical sets Barnum’s life inside a circus ring, and the critics who saw it at Wimbledon this week are split. Fairy Powered Productions calls it pure escapism and LondonTheatre1 a production worthy of its originators. Others are cooler. Several find the book thin, and more than one says the sound mix swallows lyrics. What almost nobody disputes is the company: the actor-musicians, acrobats and circus performers carry the night, even for the critics least taken with the show.
The verdict: nine reviews of the Wimbledon stop so far. Seven carry a rating: one five-star, one four-star, one three-and-a-half, three three-star and one two-star, an average of 3.4 out of 5. South London Press and Curtain Call Reviews publish no rating. The one thing nearly all of them agree on is the company: the actor-musicians and circus performers get the warmest words, while the book and the sound mix take most of the criticism.
What are critics saying about Barnum?
Fairy Powered Productions
Reviewer: Carly Burlinge
“The energy is relentless from start to finish. The circus framing means there’s always something happening – jugglers, acrobats, stilt-walkers, confetti – and it gives the whole show a carnival buzz that’s genuinely infectious. The cast throws themselves into everything with obvious joy, and the big ensemble numbers are the highlights of the night. They’re the kind of songs you’ll be humming on the way home, even if you can’t quite remember the words. The “Come Follow the Band” number is a showstopper that gets the audience clapping along, and it captures everything the show does best: spectacle, rhythm, and sheer delight in performance. Every single performer brings their A-game, and you can feel the joy radiating off the stage. It’s rare to see a cast this uniformly excellent, and it elevates the entire evening.”
Read Carly Burlinge’s full review at Fairy Powered Productions
LondonTheatre1
Reviewer: John Groves
“First seen on Broadway in 1980, where it starred Jim Dale as Barnum, it came to the London Palladium the following year with Michael Crawford. In the current revival, Matt Rawle yields little to his predecessors, having real charm and genuine charisma, as well as an engaging way of putting over a musical number and using the dialogue. Above all, as with the rest of the company, he appears to have boundless vitality and vibrancy. It is difficult to give specific examples as he seems to be onstage all the time, except when he is given brief respites for changing costumes, inventively designed by Lee Newby. Occasionally, because he speaks so quickly, it can be difficult to hear what he is saying, but this could be due to the sound design (Tom Marshall), which has too much ambience for this theatre.”
LouReviews
Reviewer: Louise Penn
The relationship between Rawle’s Barnum and Young’s Charity didn’t always convince. That duet was marred by a lack of chemistry, and despite Young’s clear dedication to the tale of the clever but wounded wife, Rawle’s diction in the patter number “Museum Song” wasn’t as comprehensible as it could have been.
Overall, this is a perfectly good revival. The circus acts are excellent. That playing of so many instruments by the cast is staggering. There’s a puppet elephant we’ve seen before in Circus 1903.
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: Tom Ambrose
“It is a show full of extreme peaks and troughs. At its best, it is an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza with the audience not knowing where to look through fear of missing the spectacle. The ensemble is consistently magnetic throughout, with the circus performances breathing life into an otherwise meandering show. Though when it is slow, especially during Barnum’s monologues to the audience, it can become more than a little frustrating.”
Pink Prince Theatre
Reviewer: Neill Kovacic-Clarke
“Where the show absolutely triumphs is in its cast. My standout performances of the evening came from the incredible circus performers. A personal favourite of mine was James Gill. He was mesmerising and his cyr wheel work was absolutely immaculate. I also thought his see-saw stunt with Emily Odunsi was breathtakingly brilliant.”
Read Neill Kovacic-Clarke’s full review at Pink Prince Theatre
The Theatre Flyer
Reviewer: Alex Farley
“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 Reviews Hub
Reviewer: Scott Matthewman
“The general impression is that the show probably worked much better on the smaller stage of its original staging in Newbury. While the 21-strong cast fills the New Wimbledon’s stage in a two-storey set, the cavernous auditorium adds a distance between performers and audience that even the normally ebullient Rawle struggles to overcome. This is especially noticeable between songs, as director Jonathan O’Boyle struggles to find any impetus in Mark Bramble’s book. Rawle and Monique Young (as Barnum’s wife Charity) gamely push through to give us an impression of a marriage built on love but riddled with marital frustrations, but otherwise we learn very little about Barnum the man.”
South London Press
Reviewer: Michael Holland
Despite some issues with the sound mixing that make it hard to follow all the lines of dialogue and singing, the cast really is the best thing about Barnum. Each of them performing mind-boggling tricks and routines with such enthusiasm and passion that would charm even the sternest of critics.
And if not for the ragtag assortment of unusual and exciting talent, why go to the circus at all? In that sense, Barnum: The Circus Musical is a true-to-its-name display of sensational, frenzied entertainment.
Curtain Call Reviews
Reviewer: Paul Wood
“Barnum relies on a strong actor playing PT Barnum and Matt Rawle steps admirably into these large shoes. It’s a difficult role requiring him to be on stage 95% of the time and it includes a lot of lib, some of which Matt failed to project over the footlights.”
Production photographs by Pamela Raith.
We covered the tour’s autumn leg when new photographs of Matt Rawle back in the title role were released. For more of this week’s press nights, see what the critics made of Hay Fever at Wyndham’s Theatre and Jerker at Waterloo East Theatre.
Barnum runs at the New Wimbledon Theatre until 3 October 2026, then continues its UK and Ireland tour, which ends at Malvern Festival Theatre on 31 October.
