★★★★

“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.

MY FAIR LADY

The Mill at Sonning

★★★★

“a wonderfully stylish presentation, and an absolute joy”

Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s “My Fair Lady”, the musical based on George Bernard Shaw’s 1913 play “Pygmalion”, by sheer default, could run into problems with today’s audience. The overt misogyny, magnified by the class divide, cannot be avoided without tearing up the book and starting from scratch. Joseph Pitcher’s intimate staging at the Mill at Sonning doesn’t do that. Instead, it creates an atmosphere of impending change. Set against a backdrop of Edwardian unrest, suffragette action, labour strikes and protest it gives Eliza Doolittle a solid context. The rebel in her almost cuts the puppet strings she dances to. I say almost – this adaptation still sticks faithfully to the compromises of Shaw’s (and Lerner and Loewe’s) ending.

Soundbites and snatches of modern broadcasts introduce the narrative – the Spice Girls’ declaration of Girl Power, Margaret Thatcher’s inaugural public address – before spooling back to the dawn of the twentieth century, Emmeline Pankhurst and women’s right to vote. Although this is never thoroughly followed through, it sets the tone before settling into a lavish, albeit traditional, telling of the story.

Simbi Akande, sultry yet fiery and gamine as Eliza, makes her voice heard amid the bustle of Covent Garden’s flower market. The barrow boys and buskers whirl around her with their accordions, fiddles and banjos. Backed by Nick Tudor’s four-piece band, the music (fabulously orchestrated by Charlie Ingles) is deliciously rich and varied, frequently whisking us back to the golden age of Hollywood musicals. The choreography (Joseph Pitcher and Alex Christian) is a masterclass in adapting to a limited space while appearing to be on a West End stage, while the exceptionally talented, all-singing, all-dancing ensemble flesh out the various locations with their slick and varied routines. Even the scene changes are seamlessly woven into the movement, as furniture and props waltz in and out of view, led by their leading partners.

Up close, we get a focused look at the two disparate worlds of Eliza Doolittle’s and that of the privileged, emotionally detached professor Henry Higgins. Nadim Naaman captures Higgins’ blind self-belief with authentic accuracy. Ignorant rather than innocent, he nevertheless reveals a crack in the solid wall that has imprisoned his emotions. The class divide may still be unsubtly characterised and cartoonish, but there is a chemistry between Akande and Naaman that suggests that Eliza is more than just an experiment for Higgins.

Even though we are witnessing a bygone era, the humour resonates without bruising modern sensibilities. Eliza’s early elocution lessons elicit lots of laughs. Mark Moraghan is wonderful as Eliza’s dustbin man father, willing to sell himself, and his daughter, for social advancement but horrified by his new middle-class life. His “Get Me to the Church on Time” is a musical highlight. And it is the music we are really here for, which is full of highlights. Akande is earthy yet plaintive for “Wouldn’t It Be Lovely”, and defiantly raw during “Just You Wait”. Both are reprised in Act Two with a different slant, aching and vulnerable, but still not beaten down. Alfie Blackwell, as foppish, potential love interest Freddy, gives a moving, inebriated “On the Street Where You Live”. There is a fine mix of emotion and flamboyance in all the musical numbers, with Ingles’ arrangements ingeniously punctuated with fluctuations and pauses to let the narrative shine through. The up-tempo, ensemble routines are a delight, while the slower numbers (“Without You” and “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face” especially) show us the softer, more vulnerable side to the leading characters.

There is a moment in the second act – following “You Did It”, the duet performed by Higgins and Jo Servi’s charismatic and commanding yet sympathetic Colonel Pickering – that encapsulates the mood of this interpretation of the show. Akande brilliantly conveys – partly through stillness and silence – the questions that bubble away inside Eliza Doolittle. ‘Where do I come from?’, ‘Where is my due credit?’, ‘What is my place in this world?’ are written in her eyes. This unspoken anguish adds texture to the songs and layers to the text. A shame the conclusion can’t be tweaked, though. The feminist slant doesn’t disguise the flaws. Nor does it detract, whatsoever, from the overall, understated lavishness of the production. This is a wonderfully stylish presentation, and an absolute joy. A real feast for the senses. Especially with the pre-show meal. It does make for quite a late night, though. But, hey, no matter. “I Could Have Danced All Night”.

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

MY FAIR LADY

The Mill at Sonning

★★★★

“a wonderfully stylish presentation, and an absolute joy”

MY FAIR LADY

The Mill at Sonning

Reviewed on 28th November 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Pamela Raith

Previously reviewed at this venue:

MY FAIR LADY

MY FAIR LADY

MY FAIR LADY

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