★★★★

“The music and dance are the highlights, stylishly adding extra layers of the story onto the dialogue”

Lerner and Loewe’s “Brigadoon” hasn’t been performed in London for over thirty-five years, and the word, from some quarters, seems to be that there must be a reason for this. In short, though, Drew McOnie’s magical interpretation at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is a strong counterargument as to why it is definitely high time for a revival. Adapted and (kind of) updated by Rona Munro it almost makes sense of its impossibly whimsical narrative but, and goes along with it, creating an enchanting mix of music, dance and drama. We are swept up into the fantasy of it all, which in itself is quite a feat. It is the sort of plot that, if closely analysed, the holes picked in it would cause it to collapse completely.

The echoing sound of a big drum kicks off the evening, followed by haunting bagpipes. Basia Bińkowska’s multi-levelled, lush and heather-wrapped set merges into the park’s natural background. Two American fighter pilots appear over the brow of the hill. The romantically inclined Tommy (Louis Gaunt) is wounded while the more down-to-earth Jeff (Cavan Clarke) is rather unsuccessfully trying to get their bearings. They have literally dropped out of the sky and according to their map they appear to be nowhere. From this ‘nowhere’, however, the village of Brigadoon appears out of… well… nowhere. We have no alternate but to suspend our disbelief – the effect is quite intoxicating as we are surrounded by the glorious harmonies of the villagers. McOnie’s choreography is beautifully balletic, yet it somehow belongs to the world of Scottish reels and bagpipes too.

Brigadoon only exists for one day every one hundred years, thanks to a divine spell cast by the local minister two hundred years previously to protect it from the outside world. The townsfolk are forbidden to leave, otherwise the village would disappear forever. An outsider can only stay if they fall in love with a local, so strongly enough that they are prepared to give up everything for their love; ‘…after all, laddie, if ye love someone deeply, anythin’ is possible!’. The pilots spend pretty much all of act one unaware of this phenomenon, but when they discover it, have quite different reactions. This is very much a fairy tale, but also a love story burning away at its heart, with enough shades of darkness to prevent it from being too honey dewed.

The music and dance are the highlights, stylishly adding extra layers of the story onto the dialogue. Occasionally the movement is extraneous but always spectacular, held together by musical director Laura Bangay’s twelve-piece orchestra that mixes the traditional with the contemporary. The ensemble is just as vital as the lead players who generously never pull focus from the energy that floods the stage. Gaunt’s performance is quite believable (even if his story isn’t) in his depiction of an unwavering belief in love, that is also prone to moments of self-doubt, while Clarke’s pragmatic Jeff challenges but also accommodates his co-pilots idiosyncrasies, culminating in a deeply moving finale. The excellent Georgina Onuorah gives intensity and grace to Tommy’s love interest Fiona, while Nic Myers’ flirty Meg teases with, and confuses, Jeff with uncertain sex appeal. Jasmine Jules Andrews and Gilli Jones, as the newlyweds Jean and Charlie, are an enchanting couple. Danny Nattrass, as the tragic, lovesick Harry, matches an agile personality with a true talent for dance. Like the entire cast, the movement clearly defines the emotions and intentions of the characters.

All set against Jessica Hung Han Yun’s mystically atmospheric lighting, the evening is a delight throughout. The sumptuous score is at once familiar, yet fresh, with favourites such as ‘Almost Like Being in Love’, ‘The Love of My Life’ and ‘There but for You Go I’ sealing the message. It is a glorious tribute to the power of love. Like the unwitting co-pilots who wander into Brigadoon, we cannot fail to be moved and entertained by this production. It is unashamed escapism, but once we’re hooked, we don’t want to escape it.

THE INTERVIEW at the Park Theatre

★★★

“Maitland’s writing and Kettle’s performance gives us a Diana that is multi-dimensional”

There is an eminent fascination with Diana, the people’s princess. More than twenty-five years after her death there are TV shows, documentaries and musicals all seeking to understand something of her, or to simply draw in the viewers. Jonathan Maitland’s original play at the Park Theatre zones in on just one interview between the princess and a reporter.

The interview in question is Princess Diana’s 1995 BBC Panorama interview with Martin Bashir. A watershed moment, the innocuous title ‘An Interview with HRH The Princess of Wales’ belied the explosive revelations made by the princess about her relationship with her husband Prince Charles, the Queen, and the rest of the royal family as well as shocking revelations about her own mental health. It was explosive stuff, hailed at the time by the BBC as ‘the scoop of a generation’. But in 2021 the BBC has vowed never to broadcast the interview again or license it to others due to Bashir’s foul-play in securing the interview.

Maitland’s play, under Michael Fentiman’s direction, explores the events leading up to the interview from the perspective of both parties, attempting to leave us asking whether this really was a one-sided manipulation on the part of Bashir, or whether Diana had more agency than critics today would have you believe.

Diana is well written and charismatically portrayed by Yolanda Kettle. With recent portrayals from Emma Corrin and Elizabeth Debicki in The Crown to Kristen Stewart in Spencer, there is no shortage of Diana content for comparison, and whilst it’s difficult to make a Diana feel fresh, Kettle does so with humour, emphasising the princess’s lighter side. She makes jokes about the music she chooses to play to avoid her conversation with Bashir being picked up by bugging devices as being about a woman who murders her adulterous husband, and has a great retort about why her sister said she should go through with the wedding despite reservations. Maitland’s writing and Kettle’s performance gives us a Diana that is multi-dimensional – light-hearted yet deeply hurt by her husband, strong-willed yet insecure, paranoid yet with good reason.

“the lights fade, and the audience groans, having been teased with what would have been the highlight of the evening”

Sami Fendall’s costume design is peak 90s with Diana’s ‘off-duty princess’ styling of belted dark rinse Levi 501s and a tucked in white shirt. Her short bouffant crop looks almost comically voluminous but is actually pretty spot on when compared to the stills from the interview itself.

Tibu Fortes as Martin Bashir is incredibly sincere and despite his refrain that he and Diana are the same, outsiders, in many ways his character stands in stark contrast. Whereas Diana is emotionally complex, Bashir seems to have only one motivation – to score the interview of a generation by doing whatever he needs to do to get it. Maitland’s choice to have Bashir use the same story about his dead brother to endear himself to Diana and her Butler is Machiavellian and makes us wonder whether he even had a brother at all. Act II focuses in on Bashir through the editing process and the fallout does him few favours. However, the suggestion that the fraudulent methods used to get the interview were the start of a long line of truth doctoring that stretched forward through Blair’s ‘dodgy dossier’ to Trump was a ham-fisted stretch.

It’s also an odd choice to have much of the first act narrated by Diana’s infamous butler, Paul Burrell. His character is almost totally redundant, other than perhaps to show that even those close to Diana were looking for ways to elevate themselves at her expense. A much more interesting aide is Luciana, wittily played by Naomi Frederick, perhaps a press or media secretary or just a close confidante who comes from the same world as Diana but seems to understand what she’s going through.

The second act does let this piece down, swapping conversations between the princess and the reporter for dry ethical conversations between the broadcaster and his BBC bosses. It starts to look up when the Kettle as Diana re-emerges after a long absence and converses with Bashir as if from beyond the grave, arguing that despite the foul-play, those were words she wanted the world to hear. Chairs appear carried by other cast members and you start to hope we will see some of the interview recreated live. But then the lights fade, and the audience groans, having been teased with what would have been the highlight of the evening – Diana live and self-scripted as she intended to be.

BRIGADOON

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

★★★★

“The music and dance are the highlights, stylishly adding extra layers of the story onto the dialogue”

BRIGADOON

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

Reviewed on 12th August 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Mark Senior

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

BRIGADOON

BRIGADOON

BRIGADOON</h3

THE INTERVIEW at the Park Theatre

★★★

“Maitland’s writing and Kettle’s performance gives us a Diana that is multi-dimensional”

“the lights fade, and the audience groans, having been teased with what would have been the highlight of the evening”

THE INTERVIEW at the Park Theatre

Reviewed on 1st November 2023

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Pamela Raith

Previously reviewed at this venue:

The Interview

The Interview

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