The reviews are in for Tom at the Farm (Tom na Fazenda), the Brazilian staging of Michel Marc Bouchard’s play that opened a five-night London run at the Barbican Theatre on Tuesday 13 October. Armando Babaioff, who translated and produced it, plays Tom, a city man who arrives at a remote farm for his boyfriend’s funeral and finds that the dead man’s mother never knew he existed, while the brother, Francis (Iano Salomão), is determined to keep it that way. Rodrigo Portella’s production, a hit at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe, plays out on a floor of mud. The critics agree on the force of the staging and the commitment of its four actors; they divide over whether the drama beneath it is fully realised.
The verdict: eight reviews in for the five-night London run, and the enthusiasm is real but not unanimous. Six critics give a rating: two five-star notices, one at four and a half, two at four (The Stage among them) and one at three, an average of 4.25 out of 5. British Theatre Guide and Art Bite publish no star rating. Almost every critic is struck by the mud-caked physicality of the staging and by Iano Salomão’s Francis; where they part company is over whether the production gives its ideas and characters room to breathe.
What are critics saying about TOM AT THE FARM?
The Upcoming
Reviewer: Sophia Moss
Sophia Moss files the most enthusiastic notice, describing a blood-soaked fever dream in which reality and fantasy keep tripping over each other. She is taken with the slippery way Iano Salomão plays Francis, so that the audience swings between loathing him and pitying him, and with the charged, combative chemistry between him and Armando Babaioff. The unbroken two hours, in her view, trap the audience on the farm alongside Tom.
“Tom at the Farm is a fantastically memorable play which will haunt audiences for days to come.”
Cool Curation
"A Brazilian thriller played out in real mud"
Reviewer: Tristan
Writing after the 14 October performance, Tristan credits the production’s constant changes of gear, from menace to laughter and back, with keeping the evening from becoming two hours of misery, and calls the four-strong cast incredible. The bare, mud-covered floor by Aurora dos Campos and the raking light of Tomás Ribas both get a warm word. The caveats are practical rather than critical: the 18+ content, the lack of an interval and surtitles that pull the eye away from the actors.
“It swings from intense drama to humour and back again, it is spiky and jarring in a good way…”
The Reviews Hub
Reviewer: John Cutler
John Cutler calls the staging profoundly powerful and singles out a towering performance from Iano Salomão as the brutal, damaged Francis, with Denise Del Vecchio’s mother described as otherworldly and broken. He admits that midway through he longed for a scene or two that eased off the physical brutality, but finds the production’s real achievement in making Tom’s decision to stay feel explicable. Hard-going, he concludes, and unmissable all the same.
“Tom at the Farm is arguably the most important Brazilian play in the last decade.”
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: Ziwen
For Ziwen, the set is the star: a sheet of soil that turns to mud and seems to take on a life of its own as the cast grow filthier. The characters, by contrast, feel less fully drawn than the atmosphere around them, and some of the humour reads as contrived. Having seen Xavier Dolan’s 2013 film first, the critic ends by setting the film’s restraint against the stage version’s raw, unrestrained voice.
“It has been a long time since I encountered a work with such pronounced strengths and limitations.”
BroadwayWorld
"A politically charged tale of homophobia where style triumphs over substance"
Reviewer: Josh Maughan
Josh Maughan admires the physical production, from Toni Rodrigues’s movement to the mud-soaked set and Tomás Ribas’s lighting, but argues that the production keeps raising fascinating ideas and dropping them before they can take hold. He is also uneasy that a violent scene can dissolve into banter moments later. Even so, he left the Barbican debating what he had seen and reading up on Brazil’s politics, which he counts in the show’s favour.
“At each hurdle, there are flashes of real power yet, somewhere between style and substance, there is a disconnect.”
Art Bite
"A purification ritual"
Reviewer: Gabriel Wilding
Gabriel Wilding warns that this is no easy ride: two hours without an interval, with Portuguese that turns barking and biting. Iano Salomão’s Francis is crude and swaggering, yet the production tricks the audience into compassion for him. The critic finds the Brazilian setting especially pointed with a presidential run-off weeks away, and describes the political gesture the company made at the curtain call.
“This undertaking is almost a purification ritual for the four actors, with all the expected bodily fluids.”
British Theatre Guide
Reviewer: Keith Mckenna
Keith Mckenna gives the coolest notice. He is puzzled by some of the production’s more peculiar images, beginning with Tom clapping at a single light bulb, and finds the late arrival of Tom’s colleague Sara hard to credit in places. Above all, he finds the play’s portrait of its damaged men unrelieved by any hope.
“…lacks even the smidgen of hope as it travels the road into bleak despair.”
Production photographs by Victor Pollak, Alex Woloch, Victor Novaes and Vinicius Barros.
Also reviewed by: The Stage (Tom Wicker, four stars, "Scorching power"), whose review sits behind a registration wall.
Elsewhere this week, the critics have also had their say on Some Woman at the National Theatre and Ghosts at Jermyn Street Theatre.
Tom at the Farm (Tom na Fazenda) ends its five-night run at the Barbican Theatre tonight, Saturday 17 October 2026, performed in Portuguese with English surtitles.
