The notices for I’ll Be Seeing You are split, and the split runs through the play rather than through its star. Martin Sherman’s new work, given its world premiere at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Alan Cumming’s first season as artistic director, follows a young writer, played by Fra Fee, who has been commissioned to write a play about Liberace and cannot stand the man, until Simon Russell Beale’s Liberace flies in and takes the commission over. Cumming co-directs with Ben Occhipinti, and Martin Sherman himself takes the stage in the closing scene, his professional acting debut. Three independent reviewers give it five stars; The Telegraph and the Daily Mail give it two. The Guardian and WhatsOnStage find a big, ambitious entertainment, while The Scotsman and All Edinburgh Theatre feel the argument at its centre goes round in circles. Russell Beale is admired almost everywhere, The Telegraph being the exception, and several critics single out the final scene, with Sherman on stage and Russell Beale singing the title song.
The verdict: fifteen reviews in so far — three five-star notices, five four-star, three three-star and two two-star, plus The Times and the Financial Times, whose reviews sit behind paywalls and are not counted here. Among the thirteen that score, the average is 3.7 out of 5. The quarrel is over the play, not the performance: every critic but The Telegraph’s has praise for Simon Russell Beale.
What are critics saying about I’ll Be Seeing You?
The Quinntessential Review
Reviewer: Sandra MacDonald
“And Sherman himself plays the Writer too. It’s beautiful, touching and a stroke of genius, which I believe Cumming suggested. Despite majoring in drama, Sherman has never appeared on stage in a professional capacity before. At 87 – yes, he really is – he’s a marvel, and this play would be nowhere near as affecting or effective without his appearance in it. Bravo for embracing life to the full!”
Read Sandra MacDonald’s full review at The Quinntessential Review
Fairy Powered Productions
Reviewer: Cathy Crabb
“What happens in I’ll Be Seeing You is that Sherman represents a battle between old and new forces. And with all the incredible costumes, the ensemble feel of the production the easy and slick direction by Alan Cumming and Ben Occhipinti and Sherman’s incredible script that flowed with exasperation and flamboyance in equal measure – having Liberace float, flounce and sparkle with costume as well as wit – the most theatrical moment is the first appearance of Martin Sherman. It must be one of the most beautiful, goosebump, camp moments of any play I have ever seen. And that, I will not spoil for you. And that which I will not spoil for you, is the reason you should really make the trip to see I’ll Be Seeing You and how dare anyone walk out of what was a theatre legend’s swan song.”
Bookmarks and Stages
Reviewer: Louise Cannon
“The fun and romance of songs and music, the past and the present are well-balanced as they weave in and out of each other, like a conflicted dance of words and views. It brings to light something deeply poignant amongst the rhinestones and frivolity that comes from the sparkle, him flying in and a car…Simon Russell Beale brings a lot of high energy to Liberace and really seems to let loose to showcase his big personality. He gives you a big sense of how Liberace was on-stage, but also what simmers under his skin in his personal life.”
The Guardian
“Simon Russell Beale’s Liberace is a life force too great to be tamed”
Reviewer: Mark Fisher
The man who made his name with Bent, a play about gay persecution during the Holocaust, has nothing in common with the pianist’s rhinestone-and-candelabra escapism. Yet, in a merrily wayward production co-directed by Ben Occhipinti and Alan Cumming, Russell Beale keeps barging in, demanding the limelight, milking the applause.
Liberace’s life force is too great to be tamed. In a struggle between the earnest and the ephemeral, he might well be the victor. By the end, the pianist is spoon-feeding ice-cream into the mouth of the playwright, a man infantilised by a hopeless battle.
WhatsOnStage
Reviewer: Simon Thompson
“So, I’m not sure how deep I’ll Be Seeing You really goes, but it’s enormous fun to watch, and you have to take your hat off to its ambition. You certainly won’t see anything as camp as this before Christmas, and one more thing is for sure: Pitlochry would never have seen anything like this before Cumming took over as artistic director.”
Corr Blimey
“A Dazzling Clash of Queer Generations”
Reviewer: Dominic Corr
“These structural lulls, however, are effortlessly swept aside by the sheer velocity and charm of the ensemble performances. Making a grand entrance (time and again) Simon Russell Beale gives a tour-de-force portrayal of Liberace, imbuing the pianist with an airborne, unstoppable magnetism. Wrapped in voluminous silver capes and sparkling waistcoats, Beale balances over-the-top theatricality with a fragile, deeply conflicted humanity, creating a life force far too gargantuan to be subdued by modern moralising. Opposite this dazzling spectacle, Fee grounds the drama as the maddened young dramatist, delivering a physically dynamic, emotionally raw performance that captures the painful friction between contemporary openness and historical shame, and manages some of the strongest laughs of the evening with his exasperations.”
The Wee Review
“A bonkers, brilliant tribute to Liberace gets its world premiere at Pitlochry”
Reviewer: Mark Gorman
“Both Fee and Beale are wonderful. and accompanied by Anne Lacey, the only female cast member, who has a number of show-stealing moments, not least when she hilariously changes a monologue from Polish-accented to Irish. Simon Russell Beale is simply magnificent as Liberace. Really it’s hard to imagine the performance being enhanced any further than this funny, considered, thoughtful portrayal of a man whose public denial of his sexuality is the main theme of this loveable, joyous play.”
ScotsGay Arts
“A Glittering Compassionate Encounter”
Reviewer: Brett Herriot
“Performances are excellent and Bafta, Tony and Olivier award winner Simon Russell Beale gives a tour de force turn as Liberace completely immersing himself in the role he sparkles behind the piano but equally revels in delivering a truly conflicted and flawed human being. Fra Fee delivers a knockout turn as the younger “Writer” with great physicality while Sherman’s elder “Writer” giving a deeply emotional performance. Its this central character pairing that carries a play which is very much a glittering compassionate encounter of the gay generations.”
The Scotsman
“Martin Sherman’s take on the Liberace story is strange and tentative but occasionally beautiful”
Reviewer: Joyce McMillan
“Then suddenly, towards the end, the young writer disappears, to be replaced by his much older, sadder, and wiser self, played by Martin Sherman himself in what suddenly becomes an almost unbearably sweet and intense interaction with Beale’s Liberace. One of the many strange things about this show is that Simon Russell Beale sings absolutely beautifully, as Liberace himself did not. And his version of the song I’ll Be Seeing You, in this final scene, is simply unforgettable – beautiful, poignant, full of regret, yet still quietly convinced of the redeeming power of love.”
All Edinburgh Theatre
“One-note”
Reviewer: Hugh Simpson
“There are wonderful moments and thought-provoking notions, but the play never really resolves itself into a coherent theatrical experience. Liberace’s motives for his Mirror lawsuit are constantly returned to, and the differences between the lives of gay men in the 50s and now are explored, but any profundity, and much of the narrative thread, tends to be overshadowed by the primary-coloured set pieces.”
Lisa in the Theatre
“Despite all the glitz and magnificent performances, I'll Be Seeing You is let down by a static narrative arc that prevents the piece from fully coming alive. But there is a beautifully poignant, deeply personal play about a playwright in here, and the framing of the lead actor writing a play while performing in the same play is pleasingly meta.”
Daily Mail
“A neurotic attempt to assess Liberace's legacy”
Reviewer: Patrick Marmion
But it's typical of a show that is at once salacious and censorious, simultaneously adoring and condemning the legend.
Yet there is no real conflict in the Liberace-versus-writer face-off. Instead, it's a peculiar collision between sentimentality and anger, burlesque and seriousness.
Production photographs by Tiu Makkonen.
Also reviewed by: The Telegraph (Mark Brown, two stars, “Simon Russell Beale has somehow managed to make Liberace dull”), The Times (Allan Radcliffe, “Simon Russell Beale camps it up as Liberace”) and the Financial Times (“Simon Russell Beale makes a resplendent Liberace in I’ll Be Seeing You”), whose reviews sit behind paywalls.
The production photographs were first released last week, and our first look at Simon Russell Beale and Fra Fee carries the full set. Elsewhere outside London this week, our roundups cover Murder Before Evensong at the Watermill Theatre and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Chichester Festival Theatre.
I’ll Be Seeing You runs at Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 11 October 2026.
