★★★½

“the show is thoroughly feel good”

A forgotten tearoom in Victorian England is a charming place to hide a children’s story. With shades of Dickens, Alice in Wonderland, and just a pinch of Great British Bake Off, Gloria Danili’s Mr Moore’s Bizarre Secret Society is ten out of ten.

1865 society pulls no punches in its treatment of the vulnerable and certainly not for miscreants. Young Leopold Liddell has been sent to live with his imperious Uncle Vernon, while the elderly Mr Moore is evicted and left homeless. The two lives collide in a disused tearoom. They bring it back to life, uncovering its secret past and forming a tribe of misfits and dreamers, drawing the attention of Queen Victoria herself.

The idea behind the play is a winner and the acting is very good. In such a low-budget production, there’s bound to be a lot of doubling. Derek Jeck is commanding as both Lewis Carroll and the villainous Vernon. Sarah Finch is excellent as Queen Victoria, Lord Melmotte and a pirate plus a few other roles. Frazer Blaxland and Elena Mackay are real troupers, playing a stream of constables, judges and street sellers between them. Sofia Inforzato has professional competence beyond her years, taking the child roles, from Alice Liddell to the match seller. The standout is Michael Bertenshaw as Mr Moore. He carries the evening. Henry Camp is a worthy foil as Leopold. Under Roman Stefanski’s direction the role changes are clear and good-natured.

The staging is minimal, and it works. The lighting (Aaron Dootson) does a great deal with very little, and the multimedia is excellent. The sound and video (Julian Butler) enhance the bare stage (Jane Linz Roberts). Victorian London appears around the actors without any need for scenery.

The problem is the first act, which needs severe editing. The set up goes on and on. The pace is flat. Lots of exposition gets in the way of momentum. There are eight meaty scenes before the interval, including Mr Moore’s home, a railway, the London streets, the Old Bailey and the London Library. Not to mention the tearoom. It’s a meander too far. Extraneous details could be swapped for more humour. The Dickens/Alice in Wonderland angle could be mined for more familiar nuggets. This would bring the audience along for the ride, instead of leaving us wondering what is the point.

As a family show, this matters. Modern audiences, especially children, are intolerant of a slow start.

The first act is just about worth sticking with. By the end, the show is thoroughly feel good. The second act, with its Grand Tea Tournament, shows how tight and charming the whole evening could be. A thorough edit would make the tearoom well worth the trip.

GETTING THROUGH IT

Old Vic

★★★★★

“profoundly touching, yet disarmingly humorous”

As the lights dimmed at The Old Vic, we entered not just a theatre, but a sanctuary for the soul. The audience sat in quiet anticipation, as if awaiting words from an old friend. Michael Rosen walked into a pool of warm light, holding a stack of papers like a weathered diary. With clean, crystalline clarity, he began—and we were immediately, effortlessly ushered into his world.

Getting Through It is a bill of monologues and poetry — fragments of memory, love, and survival stitched together through Rosen’s voice. This world is built not on spectacle, but on profound simplicity — a warm stage, a glass of water, a chair. This minimalism gave every word space to breathe. When he said, “Death is not the problem. Grief is,” the silence in the room felt deeply understanding.

Yet this was not a heavy-hearted lament. Though Rosen spoke of losing his son Eddie, he filled the journey with light, everyday details. Small memories of Eddie’s childhood — ordinary moments — began to glow in his telling.

These details become the very architecture of memory, constantly reverberating through time. The “orange head” joke found its touching resolution in Eddie’s Joke Book. Every person who crossed paths with Eddie gently pulled us back in time, leaving us quietly reflecting on “how time flies.” Laughter flowed easily throughout, and tears fell freely — grief rooted deeply in the soil of his story, yet offered not as a burden, but as a landscape to walk through.

The second half of the show detailed his near-fatal battle with COVID-19 — a stunning act of emotional alchemy. It was profoundly touching, yet disarmingly humorous. We must hold in reverence those who can transform pain into humour, and revere even more those who remember every soul that has passed through their life. His depiction of the care provided by medical staff was rendered with microscopic tenderness. He immerses us completely in the terrifying reality of a body that no longer belongs to itself, where the captured kindness of caregivers becomes the most touching — the most human — softness imaginable.

Getting Through It — by Michael Rosen — is, ultimately, a definitive argument for the power of theatre. The strongest stories need no elaborate sets — just a master storyteller and a space for collective reflection. Rosen has a rare gift: he gathers scattered fragments of life and weaves them together until, in a single moment of time and space, they meet, cycle, return, and resonate.

This is more than a storytelling masterpiece — it is a masterclass in how to tell a life. In his words, and in the shared quiet of the theatre, lives and moments find their eternal echo.

Tag Archives: Michael Rosen

MR MOORE’S BIZARRE SECRET SOCIETY

★★★½

Bridewell Theatre

MR MOORE’S BIZARRE SECRET SOCIETY

Bridewell Theatre

★★★½

“the show is thoroughly feel good”

MR MOORE’S BIZARRE SECRET SOCIETY

Bridewell Theatre

Reviewed on 2nd October 2026

by Elizabeth Botsford

Photography by Henry Hu

MR MOORE’S BIZARRE SECRET SOCIETY

MR MOORE’S BIZARRE SECRET SOCIETY

MR MOORE’S BIZARRE SECRET SOCIETY

GETTING THROUGH IT

★★★★★

UK Tour

GETTING THROUGH IT

Old Vic

★★★★★

“profoundly touching, yet disarmingly humorous”