★★★★

“an exquisite blend of the ordinary and the magical”

The Watermill Theatre is no stranger to water as the river courses around and underneath its beautiful historic building, which makes it the perfect setting for this year’s Christmas production of The Little Mermaid. Hans Christian Andersen’s classic melancholy tale of selfless love and spiritual longing has been lovingly recreated by Lara Barbier into a gentle, enchanting folktale set in the heart of a 19th century Cornish fishing community.

Having limited space to suggest both underwater and the world above is a daunting challenge, but April Dalton’s simple yet effective design is the star of the show. She cleverly transports us to an aquatic underworld by means of a reflective floor and a backdrop of rope, string and clever lighting (Emma Chapman) which evoke dense seaweed and double as the sea’s surface on a vertical plane. It then transforms into a functional fishing village using steel scaffolding, connecting the sea to land by incorporating sun-bleached lobster boxes, nets and old ropes.

In this version Merryn (Annabelle Aquino), the mermaid daughter of the Sea King Taran (Christopher Staines), is celebrating her 18th birthday with her siblings Kitto (Zach Burns) and Senara (Lucinda Freeburn). She has always longed to experience life as a human and is finally allowed to see the world above the waves for the first time, but a storm develops at sea and she witnesses a young fisherman called Cadan (Tom Babbage) fall overboard. She uses the mystical powers of her voice to save him and their two worlds merge. When she returns, she finds her underwater realm in chaos and her younger brother missing, forcing her to make a devastating decision to protect the ones she loves.

Writer Lara Barbier (who is passionate about folktales, myths and legends and happens to be Cornwall based) and director Elgiva Field (a veteran of experimental theatre and working with children) have collaborated with singer-songwriter and composer Amie Parsons (who is best known as one half of the Cornish duo True Foxes) to produce an exquisite blend of the ordinary and the magical – using jaunty sea-shanties, Cornish folk-lore, puppetry, fishing traditions and the mystical world of mermaids. This is an inspirational creative team and their vision of a UK coastal setting in the 1830s, not only adds a creditable curveball by pitting the gritty life of the fishing community against the ethereal world of mermaids, but means that with the arrival of fishing trawlers and their subsequent disruption to the local fishing communities, they are raising environmental and ecological concerns too.

The multi-talented troubadour performers who are all able to sing and act whilst playing musical instruments – cello, accordion, guitar, banjo, box drum, penny whistle, fiddle and harmonica – bring the sensational folk music to life under the capable hands of on-stage musical director Jamie Ross. Annabelle Aquino as Merryn has a gloriously magical voice and together with Tom Babbage make a charming and sincere couple as their relationship blossoms. Zach Burns and Lucinda Freeburn are commendably versatile in their copious roles from supportive siblings to bumbling smugglers, but the show would benefit from a greater sense of danger or threat from the darker characters to give it a sense of balance. However a nod to the dialect coach who did a sterling job on those Cornish accents!

This family show is recommended for 4 year olds and upwards. They will be enchanted by the effervescent bubbles, the dreamy sea-folk gently swaying in the underwater currents, the most adorable puppet seal and a flapping seagull (courtesy of Naomi Oppenheim) in this whimsical, gentle, toe-tapping twist of a fairy tale.

THE LIGHTNING THIEF: THE PERCY JACKSON MUSICAL

The Other Palace

★★★

“Impressively staged, it is indeed truly fantastical.”

What started out as a bedtime story for his nine-year-old son quickly evolved into a global publishing phenomenon that outstripped the writer Rick Riordan’s dreams. A five-book series of fantasy novels was followed by two feature films, a television series and video game. In an age where you can’t turn a stone without finding a musical under it, this was the natural next step. Joe Tracz is behind the book, while Rob Rokicki has adapted Riordan’s take on the Greek myths with a high energy bolt of musical lightning, that struck Broadway in 2020 and is now lighting up London’s stage.

“The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical”, for those who don’t know (and I didn’t… I must have been living under that upturned stone), is a reimagined mash-up of the Greek myths, crash landed in the twenty-first century. Percy Jackson, a bit of a misfit who has a habit of being expelled from school, discovers he is the ‘half-blood’ son for Poseidon. While reluctantly attending a summer camp for demigods, he quickly finds himself on a dangerous quest to locate and bring back Zeus’s lost Master Bolt. Teaming up with fellow demigods, Grover and Annabeth, they go on all sorts of adventures, escaping hellhounds, furies, lotus-eaters and narrative logic. Naturally Percy returns a hero (that’s no spoiler) with the lightning bolt intact and a soaring tune full of well-worn messages.

Despite some genuinely funny moments, it takes itself rather seriously in a teen kind of way. The opening number drums into us that ‘The Gods Are Real’ without any apparent irony, as though we should be taking notes. Being normal is the real myth here. The things that make you different are the things that make you strong (read that sentence like you’re belting a rock anthem, and you get the picture). The musical numbers are delivered throughout in a storm of pizzazz, the volume turned up high and, although many numbers blend into another, the tunes have enough snap, crackle and pop to become catchy earworms. Director and choreographer, Lizzi Gee, keeps the pace fast and furious while the cast crank up the fun-factor to feverish levels.

Morgan Gregory gives a well-balanced mix of nerdiness and fearlessness to the hapless hero, Percy Jackson. Vocally cutting through the bombast of the band he skilfully takes us on his epic journey with him. Lizzy-Rose Esin-Kelly is a gutsy Annabeth, the daughter of Athena while Angus Benstead’s Grover is a nervous satyr. There is much multi-rolling within the ensemble cast, and many costume changes. Caricature invariably displaces nuance, but amid the chaos Paisley Billing, as Percy’s mother (among other characters) smooths and softens the action with her controlled performance and expressive, velvet voice.

But for the most part, there is a cartoon quality to the production in which grating tones and shouty voices dominate. It is as though our attention span is assumed to be low, with the rapid-fire, episodic progression of events that whisk us through Percy’s quest as he runs up against Gods and Monsters in equal measure. We end up feeling a little giddy but can’t really complain as it’s nothing compared to what the performers must be feeling. A whirlwind of a show, that tosses its plotlines into the tornado with so much abandon that we lose track and ultimately cease to care. Visually it is a treat, and it probably helps to be familiar with Riordan’s novels. Impressively staged, it is indeed truly fantastical. With clearer storytelling, more light and shade and more respect for the mythology, it could also be fantastic.

THE LITTLE MERMAID

Watermill Theatre

★★★★

“an exquisite blend of the ordinary and the magical”

THE LITTLE MERMAID

Watermill Theatre

Reviewed on 30th November 2025

by Sarah Milton

Photography by Pamela Raith

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE LITTLE MERMAID

THE LITTLE MERMAID

THE LITTLE MERMAID

THE LIGHTNING THIEF: THE PERCY JACKSON MUSICAL

The Other Palace

★★★

“Impressively staged, it is indeed truly fantastical.”