Barnum - The Circus Musical ★★★

The true story of PT Barnum is a sordid one, and the ‘Great American Showman’ was certainly no hero; quite the opposite.

He was a leading light in the world of circus animal cruelty. He stole nine elephants from their home in Sri Lanka, then used a horrific “burning method” – sticking a hot poker up their trunks – to handle them in his shows. He bought African Americans to exploit them – none more so than Joice Heth, an African American slave with a disability, who he purchased cheaply (briefly mentioned in the show with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to a “bill of sale”) and hyped as the 161-year-old nurse of George Washington. When she died, Barnum charged people 50 cents each to watch a surgeon dissect her. (Not mentioned in the show.)

He presented profoundly racist “ethnological congresses” of people from Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world, presenting them as “savage” or “barbarous”, feeding the voyeurism of white audiences, and contributing to the “othering” of non-white people. (Not mentioned in Mark Bramble‘s determinedly rose-tinted script)

For an American businessman who majored in callous exploitation, humbug, “fake news” and populist appeals to people’s baser instincts, there is a story of deep contemporary resonance to be had. But you won’t find it in the Barnum-inspired Hollywood film à clef, The Greatest Showman (2017) – nor will you find it in Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart’s whitewashed musical from 1980, Barnum.

But putting aside all reservations about romanticised source material, how does this 46-year-old musical stand up in 2026? When it launched on Broadway with Jim Dale, it proved a heady conjunction of oom-pa-pah toe-tapping tunes and thrilling acrobatics. When it premiered at the London Palladium a year later, it starred Michael Crawford, a leading man already known for his commitment to physical performances. He underwent 5 months of training to achieve effortless athleticism in various circus stunts, including a breathtaking tightrope walk. Big shoes indeed for Lee Mead (star of Any Dream Will Do, Casualty, and Wicked) to fill. Or should that be small shoes? Which is better for tightrope walking?

The production is exceptional. Actor-musicians playing 150 instruments, including one gleaming white sousaphone – the score doesn’t get sexier than this. Musically, this Barnum is thrilling. And vibrant. And quite possibly worth the ticket price by itself. Of course, many of the songs are a little samey and dated, interspersed with big numbers like Come Follow the Band, Colours of My Life (and its reprises) and especially a deliciously bluesy Black and White, which could easily be one of the best lesser-known musical theatre songs you’ll hear on stage this year. Kudos to arranger, orchestrator and musical supervisor George Dyer for bringing the music of Barnum roaring back to life.

Plaudits, also, to set and costume designer Lee Newby. He is equally adept at serving the obvious circus tropes, albeit with a slightly weathered, honest feel – and then blink, and Newby is subverting it, satirising it. It is a design high-wire act, and he never falters. Whether it’s a decent budget or smoke and mirrors (we suspect it’s the latter), the costumes keep coming. And Newby fundamentally understands the tentpoles that will lift up all the rest.

And so the stage is set, and then, and yet, the show wobbles like Barnum on that tightrope. Mark Bramble’s book is… humbug. It tries to persuade you that you are watching an impresario’s journey to enlightenment – but it’s all episodic Wikipedia drops through Barnum’s key life moments that never quite take the emotional flight that the glorious acrobats do. The show revolves around and entirely depends upon the performer playing the titular character. It’s not that Lee Mead is bad – it’s just that he’s never enough (never, never). To achieve (and lose, and gain) all that Barnum did, it requires a magnetic personality, tinged with an undeniable ruthlessness. Barnum is the ultimate snake oil salesman. Perennially lovely Mead may convince you to get travel insurance for a weekend vacation or perhaps to buy a walk-in bath with his sincere twinkliness – but he cannot muster the needed pizzazz and irresistible chutzpah which led the impresario to these many circuses. To give him his due, the Any Dream Will Do star can sing beautifully, but, as anyone who has listened to the Original Broadway Cast recording with Jim Dale knows, that’s not what is required in the role. And while he holds the entire audience breathless with his tightrope act at the end of the first act, he never imbues the character with anything like the same jeopardy in the rest of the performance.

Monique Young gets a role that’s the equivalent of a clown car with all the doors falling off – she’s the Debbie Downer of the piece. Meant to be the ever-sensible foil to Barnum’s wild and risky excess, the character (originated by Glenn Close on Broadway) has so little to work with. And yet Young manages to razzle-dazzle some dignity into the part, which is to her credit. Charity and (Phineas) Taylor have so little chemistry; she is milk to his Weetabix. Everything that emerges from their relationship is irrevocably soggy. And director Jonathan O’Boyle must take some blame for this. As Barnum’s ringmaster, he never lands the emotional content that makes an audience care, rather than merely enjoy.

It almost gets there with the arrival of the Swedish songbird, Jenny Lind. Penny Ashmore shines as the European opera star. Flighty, narcissistic, talented – the old adage that it takes a star to play a star is reinforced and then some here. Ashmore sings like a dream, replicates the class that PT added to his repertoire and energises the first act as it hurtles towards the interval. She’s the now-it-gets-interesting juice of the piece. And then she goes, leaving the theatrical thrills to the acrobats.

This Barnum is a hard one to recommend without caveats. Sure, the set and the music and the multi-talented cast will deliver the “schemes and dreams” of the piece, but the emotional disconnect between the leads makes it hard to follow the band.