THE LOST LIBRARY OF LEAKE STREET
The Glitch
★★★★
“There is wonder and enchantment here”
Are you ready for some Christmas magic? Well by stepping down into a basement beneath a café in Waterloo, you may find a taste of what you’re looking for.
In a beautifully designed (Oli Savage) low-ceilinged room, adorned with Moroccan rugs and shelves piled high with everything from juggling balls to Marlboro Reds, hard hats to plush toys, this dark-panelled space becomes The Lost Library of Leake Street. Though billed as suitable for ages 8+, it’s a surprisingly grown-up festive show. There is wonder and enchantment here, certainly, but once the premise settles, the story leans into weightier themes: grief, loss, and the unexpected kinship that can arise from both.
Our guide to this hidden world is Isla (Ronay Poole), the narrator and emotional anchor of the piece. She introduces us to the library with cheeky energy, teasing out the idea of how such a place might become “lost”. The explanation, never fully watertight, that this is a library of lost things doesn’t quite align with what we see. The most likely explanation, that it’s a library of lost things, doesn’t quite seem to fit the narrative. Here, every item holds a story dear to its owner, and can be deposited as payment in kind for an item with a story of equal value. The mechanics of the mythology may be slightly fuzzy, but it hardly matters; the emotional logic is sound.
The story unfolds through Isla’s discovery of the library for the first time, meeting its enigmatic proprietor, Maximilian Crimp (Malcolm Jeffries).
Both actors are ineffably charismatic. Poole is delightful both as a curious young girl encountering this den of delights and later as Max’s partner, told through the stories of the keys to the library. Jeffries, meanwhile, brings a gentle melancholy to Max, a sort-of-Scrooge whose hermit-like habits stem from an ill-fated love, cut short in its prime.
Together, they navigate a script that is rich, sometimes dense, and delivered at a clip that takes a moment to adjust to. Writer-director Oli Savage clearly relishes language – most evident in saddling his protagonist with the delightfully pompous name “Maximilian Crimp”. Occasionally the running gag of Isla refusing to call the place a library, and Max’s repeated reprimands, wears thin. But otherwise the script is tight, its drama emerging less from interpersonal conflict than from the stories the characters tell, and the emotional worlds those stories open up.
Ultimately, The Lost Library of Leake Street is a play about storytelling itself – about the power of narrative to transport us from our humdrum or grief-stricken realities. In its love of stories, one hears echoes of Matilda, Little Women, even Cinema Paradiso. At its best, it transported me back to evenings listening to my father read to me and my siblings before bed, some of my most treasured childhood memories.
Sweet without being saccharine, this show offers a gentle reminder that the real magic of Christmas lies in connection – through family, friendship, and the tales we share. It’s Christmas-adjacent rather than overtly festive, but delivers the warm glow of the season all the same.
THE LOST LIBRARY OF LEAKE STREET
The Glitch
Reviewed on 27th November 2025
by Amber Woodward
Photography by Phoebe Dyer
Previously reviewed at this venue:
BOY BAND | ★★★ | October 2025
NEVER GET TO HEAVEN IN AN EMPTY SHELL | ★★★ | July 2025
THE RISE AND FALL OF VINNIE & PAUL | ★★★★ | April 2025
