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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Theatre Royal Haymarket, West End) - ★★★★★ REVIEW
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Micky Jo Theatre Reviewer
I just got back from seeing the opening night performance of the unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry at Theatre Royal Haymarket in the West End, and boy are my legs tired. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Micky Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. And that thing that you might be hearing right now, unless background noise removal has worked a treat on this particular one, is the very noisy garment that I'm currently wearing for the benefit of podcast listeners. I have on a plaid waterproof poncho because the musical itself is outdoorsy and I thought that it was cute. If you think this is silly, imagine me wearing this the entire evening over a suit in the stalls of the theater. Yes, tonight was indeed the opening night of the West End run of the Unlike Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a musical based on the acclaimed novel by Rachel Joyce, which I spent much of the last 10 days of my life reading. It tells the incredibly moving story of its titular character, Harold Fry, who finds himself walking from Devon to Berwick upon Tweed, which, for the benefit of those like myself who aren't blessed with skills when it comes to geography, is basically Scotland. In fact, they say as much in the show just to make sure we're all on the same page. Ah, don't assume, never assume. The book for the musical has been written by the book's original author, Rachel Rachel Joyce. The adaptation is said to have been co created by Joyce as well as the creative Peter Darling and the director of this production, Katie Rudd. The music and lyrics for the musical theatricalization of the story have been created by Passenger, who is I have learned, because famously, I don't know who anyone is outside of the world of theatre. A British indie folk singer songwriter amongst the ongoing trend of individuals from the music industry and recording artists writing the scores to new musicals. He's not the only one to be doing it he's not even the only one to be doing it in the West End in this current theatrical season, Tom Fletcher just scored the Paddington musical that opened at the Savoy. And speaking of Paddington, there is a little note of creative crossover that I will talk about later in this review, but the reason they may be invoked in the same sentence is because they are about to be potentially nominated alongside each other in multiple categories at this year's Olivier Awards. And in a relatively quiet year for new musicals, especially new British musicals, I dare say that Harold Fry might be the only one who could meaningfully rival that little Peruvian bear who could. Of course, for all of the awards punditry, you will have to stay tuned. In the meantime, I am very excited to tell you about the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, the West End's newest musical theatre gem. If you have had the chance to see this already, either in the West End or perhaps in its pre West End run at Chichester Festival Theatre, one of the country's finest regional theatres, then be sure to comment with all of your thoughts and feelings down below. And of course, if you enjoy listening to my reviews, you can find many more of them wherever you are, seeing my face or hearing my voice. Make sure to click, follow or subscribe. For now though, let us embark on this journey together and talk about the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Okey dokey. So for the benefit of anyone who has no idea what this story is about and may be trying to call it the Curious Case or the Curious Incident, it's neither of those. At the start of the narrative we are introduced to Harold Fry, a man later in life, living a perhaps colourless and monotonous existence with his wife Maureen. We find the two of them at the kitchen table sharing very brief, emotionally hollow and even pseudo resentful interactions as she eventually lets him know that he has a letter. A letter has arrived which is addressed to Harold. He opens it and realizes it is from a former co worker who he hasn't heard from in years, sharing the sad news that she has entered hospice care. Her name, to be often repeated throughout the story, is Queenie Hennessy. And there is evidently a little more substance than we are initially led to believe to the prior relationship between her and Harold, even a slight knowing quality from his wife Maureen as well. Because when Harold tries and fails on a couple of occasions to adequately respond to this very meaningful message, he eventually finds himself heading to the nearest post box, but realizing only as he is about to release the letter that the act of writing a few short lines and walking that short a distance feels too inconsequential for what it is that Queenie Hennessy once gave him. Without realizing what he has started, he heads to the next post box and from there to the post office, eventually stopping at a garage where a young woman who he accidentally engages in conversation, perhaps tells him about her aunt, who, like Queenie, was also diagnosed with cancer. And she encourages Harold passingly to keep believing that there may be some higher power and the nature of belief, even though Harold is not a religious man, may have more benefits to the human condition than any of us are able to perceive or understand. This ignites an even then not fully formed idea in Harold's mind, but by the time he reaches the nearest telephone box and tries to contact the hospice in Berwick Upon Tweed where Queenie is being looked after, by the end of that short conversation, he has resolved that he is going to make his way to her and that while he does, she has to keep on living. He is going to choose to believe that if he walks from his then position to Berwick Upon Tweed, an extraordinarily long distance, that she will have to survive for the duration of that time. And this is the unlikely pilgrimage from the title, unlikely because it's an admittedly unusual thing for a person to do, but also because this at the time doesn't necessarily align with Harold's personality, even by his own understanding, after a difficult childhood and various formative events which we will in due course learn more about, he has been infused with this sort of a sense of shame and colored deeply by regret. He's recently retired, with no real friends to speak of and a strained marriage. Certainly he's not the Kind of a person who would decide to do something so adventurous. All of which sets us up for this pretty extraordinarily life affirming story from Rachel Joyce in which Harold reconnects to the world, both the literal countryside that he encounters as he walks from one end of the United Kingdom to another, remembering literally and figuratively the feeling of sunshine on your skin after a storm. But along the way he also encounters Britain by way of its inhabitants. And he meets people and against his better judgment, engages them in conversation and learns about their stories and the baggage that they are carrying with them and the shame and the regrets that they each have. In doing so, he learns things about himself and he goes on as well as a literal journey, a personal and emotional, emotional one as well. As does his wife, Maureen. Because one of my favorite parts of the book is that our focus doesn't stay with Harold the entire time, we cut back to these comparatively sedentary scenes with her. As he is walking down the sides of motorways and a roads and reaching these different communities and having these different unexpected experiences. Maureen remains at home and is forced to reckon with this choice that he has made without telling her. It's a gorgeous story, one I was deeply excited to see on stage. And let's talk a little more about the way it's actually realized theatrically and in terms of the storytelling language. It's familiar perhaps of the staging and choreography of a show like Hamilton or Come From Away. It's worth pointing out, prior to retirement, Harold's job was as a rep at a local brewery, in spite of the fact that he didn't drink. And there are at the back corners of the stage, initially a couple of barrels which are implemented in various different ways. They become stepping stones for him to walk across as he travels. They become the hedge that separates his own front garden from his neighbour Rex's. Upon closer inspection, actually the entire stage that this is being performed on looks a little like the top of a barrel, circular and wooden. It's ingenious, stylized storytelling from director Katie Rudd, which undertakes the impossible task of transporting Harold from one location to another while he remains at all times on a stage in front of us. The show's vision identity sees Katie as a creative hand in hand with choreographer Tom Jackson Greaves with a lot of influences, it seems pulled from traditional British folklore and customs and traditions. There's moments that feel inspired by like Morris dancing. And this works to my mind on multiple levels because you have Harold traveling across the country, encountering these different people and communities in These different towns and cities and villages and counties, seeing from Devon to Berwick on Tweed, very sides of the country. And it's lovely through that to pay homage to various different aspects of contemporary and classic British culture. But also there's a sort of an underlying dialogue in the show about what it means to really believe. And when we pull on folklore in this way, we're talking about beliefs and traditions and customs, and that's really the same idea. The company is a large ensemble, many of whom play multiple roles. There are moments of physicality. When the envelope arrives for the first time, it is passed between different members of the ensemble in a move slightly familiar of Hamilton. I don't know if they're actually the correct show to credit with the original, like piece of paper dramatically passed from one person to the next down the line. They may have done it in the most memorable way. In the early establishing moments of the show, we also have members of the company sat around the playing space, encircling the sort of drab, colourless kitchen, harshly lit from above, sparsely staged, and they reflect the lethargy of this very static life before later springing into action and reflecting movement and travel. And this is a difficult thing to convey on stage. And brilliant theatrical techniques are implemented here in order to transport us across the theatricalised version of the country. There remains, I think, some sensation of walking that didn't necessarily come across and can't necessarily come across if you don't have a hello Dolly at the Palladium style travelator or perhaps a revolve Hadestown. It feels silly, really, to see this show and complain that there wasn't enough walking. But there is so much walking in the book and generally, for obvious reasons, we theatricalized the moments in between all of the walking for the show, which is probably the same thing they do in the film. Ultimately a good choice. I just like the walking. Listen, I'm a walker, also a fan of the crisps. Let's move on and talk about the material, including this original folk score. So there has evidently been tremendous care taken in the adaptation of the book by Rachel Joyce herself for the stage, but it's a really tight and well reduced theatrical script. The events of the book and the characters have been subtly brought up to date, rather than a news crew eventually taking interest in Harold's story, instead he becomes viral on social media. The real challenge of adapting this story, though, has relatively little to do with setting. It has far more to do with with the nature of conversation in the novel itself, the majority of which on the Page takes place in Harold's own mind. The same thing for Maureen. And it's difficult to theatricalize dialogue, so much of which is internal, because Harold is a quiet and hesitant and shy man as we encounter him in the book. So the character has to be adapted somewhat to allow him to make his way into these conversations. It wouldn't work, though, if he was so forthcoming to have the conviction to relate all of his internal feelings to the audience. So we can't simply have him talk about everything that he is recalling and everything that this journey is making him think about from his lifetime, from his childhood, regrets from his adult years. This is where Rachel Joyce has had to rework a lot of the internal monologue that she had written for these characters and facilitate its revelations, of which there are a handful through dialogue and through other interactions. And it's been quite seamlessly reworked and very well streamlined. There is some sense of distance lost perhaps to the condensing of the whole thing out of necessity, but a lot of subtly very clever choices, like Harold arriving in Exeter and recalling in that moment of the time that he and Queenie worked together and their first task was to drive together to Exeter to go and visit a pub there. There has also been, by my reckoning, the slightest tonal shift from the page to the stage, again sort of out of necessity. And it has to do, I think, with the audience capacity for sorrow. I think there is more that we are able to withstand one chapter at a time. When it comes to inherently sad and occasionally bleak and regretful, woeful, ultimately bittersweet stories versus all of those scenes happening within the passage of two and a half hours back to back to back. There is the sensation as you watch especially a musical on stage. And they can be heavy and they can be sad, as we know Les Miserables longest running musical in the world. But there is the sensation that we need these injections of levity and buoyancy. Just as Harold needs encouragement to keep going, as he begins to question whether this is the right thing for him to have done, the audience needs that as well. And I think the whole thing could skew a little sadder. There's moments of grit and harsh reality, even from the novel, that have been tidied a little for some of the supporting characters. And also in terms of what we learn about and everything that we see on stage, there are a couple of moments realized with more of a stylish theatricality which keeps them from being too emotionally hard hitting. And if you're someone who struggles with sad stories. If you are reluctant to go and see something sad on stage, this falls more into the camp of bittersweet, ultimately uplifting, life affirming, A la A Come From Away or the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. And it's worth pointing out if you are a fan of either of those shows, I think you're really going to love this. It lives in a very similar realm. Another reason as to why is the folk music inspired score which they all have in common, this being another key ingredient in the adaptation of this story. And this is sort of jointly responsible for the shift in the feel of the whole thing, even subtly, because a minority of the songs on occasion seem so determined to uplift and are. Are equipped with platitudes in their lyrics and are delivered by characters with whom we aren't particularly well acquainted. And they feel like they are trivializing a couple of passages of Harold's Journey for the sake of it being a musical. For the most part, though, I really love this score. There are a lot of early lyrics I thought were just astonishing. And folk is the perfect musical realm for this story to live in. It is simultaneously classic and contemporary. It is sort of the soundtrack of British countryside and these rolling hills, but it's also storytelling. There's a reason why we are hearing more and more folk musical theatre scores. There's another fantastic one over at Southwark Playhouse, Elephant right now with the new musical ballad lines. And it's because it is classic, ancient, intriguing storytelling. There is this sense of a sort of a conjuring of magic as we begin to sing a lot of these songs, songs many of which are sung by a newly introduced balladeer character. But before I tell you a little more about them, I want to share with you some of my favorite lyrics. Maureen, when coming to terms with the direction that her life has taken, sings something to the effect of when did it harden? When did it start to buckle? I used to love to garden Now I only trim the honeysuckle which is a pair of rhymes I think is lovely. When this balladeer character I mentioned first sings of Harold Fryd, introduces him to her us, we hear a lyric he worked away his adult life blunting like the kitchen knife. And there's a real richness, I think, to passengers writing for this score. It also has an easy theatrical quality. I think this is very much a new musical theatre writing talent that we have discovered. Some of the songs are more overtly empty. My favourite song in the score, without question, is one that happens towards the end of the first act and a very emotional moment that made me sob. This is the song keep on walking Mr. Fry as Harold receives an almost unexpected encouragement just in the moment when he needs it the most. The combination of lyric with a simple but emotionally resonant melody beautifully sung by Jenna Boyd and this real turning point cornering around the idea of belief in the story all comes together so powerfully made me cry. Anyway, I do also want to credit the arrangements, orchestrations and additional compositions from Jeremy Holland Smith, Phil Bateman, also musical supervisor, and some additional composition. There were a couple of moments of really charming underscore. I first noticed it when Harold was trying and failing to write this letter in response to Queenie at the very start of the show. But before that, we begin with the introduction of this balladeer character and it's a great way of effortlessly theatricalizing and musicalizing the story of Harold Fry by making it this sort of a sung tale from the beginning. And it's a sort of a forest nymphy kind of a character played by, I believe, Australian actor Noah Mullins, who was previously an Orpheus in Hadestown during this production's world premiere. This role was originated by Jack Wolfe, who is currently on Broadway being Orpheus in Hadestown. There is an absolute parallel with these roles, but also between these two performers, which segues us very neatly into a conversation about the actors in this production.
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Micky Jo Theatre Reviewer
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Micky Jo Theatre Reviewer
Now, Mark Addy is the fantastic actor taking on the role of Harold Fry, better known perhaps for his work on screen. I've enjoyed his warm, charming, witty performances in various shows, many of them medieval and films for years. And he brings, I think, just enough of that that to his version of Harold Fry. Like I mentioned before, he is more conversational. He is more sort of a little more socially outgoing than he is depicted in the original novel. I think that has to be the case. But it also affords him a little more of a quality of charm. And he evades slightly more, for better or worse, this sense of shame and indignity. We don't meet him as this stuttering individual, fearful of even being perceived so much as somebody who is quite happy to just go about his business and doesn't really ask for much from anyone. The eventual culmination of his journey, however, is no less emotional for this, particularly the scenes which he shares with his wife Maureen, played by the extraordinary Jenna Russell, veteran of the West End stage. The limited time which the two of them do spend in direct conversation with each other is quite precious because for the majority of the show they are increasingly far apart. As he is walking further and further away from their home, she questions whether he is traveling further away emotionally as well. Will he ever truly come back to her? And how much of him will return if he does. Now, what's interesting, and in so many musicals, everyone sings. And that's the whole thing, right? People sing when they can no longer speak, whatever. There are, I think too few musicals where we really ask the question, should every character sing? Does this person sing? Is there strength in somebody's not singing, taking longer to find their voice? And Harold Fry doesn't have his own I want song as such, because for the longest time in the show he doesn't really sing as he is coaxed out of his shell and encouraged more so by the people he means. I think the first time we really hear him sing is by participating in the later moments of a very crowd pleasing duet, which is riddled with expletives. And eventually he does sing slightly, but it has to be earned. And there is this sense of emotional honesty, transparency and revelation and relief in singing that I don't think can come naturally to him. In the first few scenes, the first act, even of this musical, I think we have to wait for that from Harold. We hear Maureen singing more, we hear this melody reprised as she is reflecting at home on who he has become and what her life has become, and then finally on her past and trying to reckon that with what she wants her present, her future to be. We meet her with this very bristling quality in the first scene. And there is a comic familiarity to Maureen when she complains about Harold leaving his mobile phone behind, when she goes to the doctor to try and get them to issue medical advice to stop him continuing on this walk before she truly understands its purpose. And she confides to the doctor that Harold has Alzheimer's, and when asked what kind of medication he is on, replies that, well, he hasn't really been diagnosed as such. Jenna Russell once more brings so much human truth and honesty to her performance, but something that she has been wonderful at doing throughout her illustrious career on the West End stage is delivering these heartbreakingly emotional song performances, this gorgeous acting through song that she does. And if anyone had the chance to enjoy her fairly recent performance in flowers for Mrs. Harris at Riverside Studios. There's a lot of overlap with that character. This one just has sharper edges. But it's a real ensemble cast effort, this production, beginning with Noah Mullins as this balladeer character. And there is something magical and intriguing and mysterious about their presence on stage, which works so beautifully for this. There is a really haunting quality to their voice. Anyone who had this, the chance to see and hear Noah's Orpheus, I'm sure that that must have been an extraordinary experience. The vocal performance in this, of this score is out of this world. Some really glorious moments. There are moments in the show when the balladeer addresses Harold directly and then they sort of move away and then return. I want, if anything, I think, even more balladeer. But there is an interesting thing that arises here when the balladeer joins Harold on his journey, as does another initial companion and later, a sort of a small community ends up being perhaps inadvisably formed. But for a while, it is just Harold and a dog who is named Dog, who is brought to the stage via uncannily convincing puppetry. Puppetry performed by Tino Tatspear. And it's not quite the state of the art trick or treat being perpetrated over at the Savoy Theatre when Paddington walks out on stage. But nonetheless, even while being puppeteered, even while not designed, trained to look naturalistic, you can watch this dog and it's so charming just to see the tail wag, to see it chasing a reluctant Harold around the stage. This, though, brings us to something of an interesting quandary because some sense of his isolation and loneliness as he completes this task, this pilgrimage in the book is a little lost here. And I recall at the opening night of Paddington speaking to that show's book writer about he couldn't be puppeteered. Paddington as a character that is in a sort of a warhorse style because so much of the story relies on his solitude and him looking alone and lonely on stage. And I wonder if that's something that Harold Fry loses the littlest bit of. What it gains though by the same token is this sense of community and how Harold's walk is already bringing people together and how with all of the voices and memories in his head, he's never really been alone, even when he was. And there are more brilliant stand up performances in the company. Maggie Service has some wonderful moments in a couple of different roles. Ashley Samuels has a very memorable arrival into the show just when we need a little bit of fresh energy. Nicole Nia Rambi brings us one of our first musical highlights as the girl in the garage who gives Harold this idea in the first place. In the show it's in the form of a perhaps a little too early gospel number, which you know, I forgive, but because it's just so much fun. But it's the remarkable Jenna Boyd who, playing among other characters, Sister Philomena and the farmer's wife, delivers two of the heftiest emotional moments in the show. Really, really powerfully played. The details of which I might just tell you a little bit more about in the final section of this review, which is out of necessity I feel going to contain spoilers. If you aren't familiar with the story, I would advise against listening to this part before seeing the show. I would suggest going and checking this out for yourself. Then you can come here and listen to that intriguing final chapter. If you have read the book but still don't want to know how it is realized, you might not want to listen to this either. But if you are ready to hear the spoilers.
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Micky Jo Theatre Reviewer
Here they are. So I don't think we can adequately discuss all of these performances in every aspect of this production if I don't talk about a little bit of spoiler inclusive territory. Final warning, skip this if you don't want to know. But we come to find out that one of the biggest motivators for Harold and sort of the thing that every aspect of his personality, as it has come to be, kind of boils down to, and even this history with Queenie and the strains in his marriage all relate to the fact that his son, who he refers to, who Maureen is in conversation with on a couple of occasions, has actually passed away. And they curiously don't do the next normal thing of portraying him on stage because the book is a little bit more of a red herring because he has dialogue. And there are chapters where Maureen is talking to him in their home after Harold's departure. And it's like David said this in response and then they speak on the phone and she's like, have you spoken to David? All of this stuff? And obviously I already knew this part of the story, but it does feel as though it is so suggested far earlier. And you may have already guessed that the balladeer character that Noah Mullins is playing is basically a realization of Harold's lost son David, and also plays David in flashback moments very powerfully. This is where Noah Mullins really gets to thrive as an actor, and I need to pay tribute to the difficult, thorny and emotive work that they do in that moment. And you know, it's so much more that than just beautiful angelic singing. And I love the way they've been directed and planted in the early scenes as well, lingering at the edges of the Frye Family home, watching with concern over both of their parents, over Harold and Maureen trying to urge Harold out of the door. There's this beautiful lighting cue when Harold opens the door and leaves the kitchen for the very first time time. And this warm glow of light floods in from the upstage right corner. There's another gorgeous set reveal moment when the dark back wall splits open to reveal a violet hued sky. Samuel Wyer is the designer responsible, I believe, for the set and costume, which is also gorgeous and has a lot of nods to, again, like Morris dancing costumes. There are a few more moments of gorgeous puppetry in the show as well, one of them being an earlier song performed by the wonderful Gemma Boyd, perhaps the. The first stranger who Harold meaningfully encounters on his journey, when he ends up reaching something of a dead end. And she sets him off in the right direction, but not before giving him a little bit of encouragement and sharing some of the history of her own life with him as well. And she is doing a little business with a lot of white laundry hanging on four wires descending down from a central pole. And she pulls things off of each line and puts them over herself to record call younger versions of herself, something that Maureen will later do in their shared home when she is casting her mind back to the evening when they met. But Jenna Boyd's character, the farmer's wife, at this point takes this dress that she's holding over herself and flips it up and turns it into the representation of the child that she and her husband could never have. All of a sudden, he is represented on stage by various cross clothes held together by puppeteers on each side. They depict him working and having what looks to be some kind of a heart attack, but falling down and crumbling into a pile of clothes. It's gorgeous work. It's stunning direction. I do an awful lot of laundry in my life as a person who wears an awful lot of clothes and never once has it made me feel this emotional close, but not quite it. Also, to circle back to the British culturally inspired choreography turns into something sort of representative of maypoles dancing as the ensemble members holding the ends of these lines move over and underneath each other in this way, it's almost as though we get to see as much of England as Harold does. And we go to Bath and we see a tour group and we meet tourists and we see someone pretending to be a statue. There's a familiar sight shown on the video wall on the backdrop. A video wall which I will say, very subtly incorporated into the scenic design. And it does feel as though generally all of the creatives are involved, have pushed the identity and the aesthetic and the confines of what this can look like on stage as far as they possibly can into the realm of theatricality. And they found as much colour and vibrancy in it as possible. When we have this gospel number in the garage at the beginning and we have these dancers coming on in these outfits so that when they do the choreography they suddenly look like the spinning things in a car wash wash. Or when the admission of a sordid gay affair turns into a celebratory tap dance duet. Or when the show's collaboration with one of my favorite pizza restaurants, Pizza Pilgrims, actually manifests on stage with actual product placement. Not something you see an awful lot of in musical theater. Ultimately, though, all of these details are essentially just pizza toppings atop the real substance of the show, which is this emotional story between these two characters and their emotional and physical coming back together. Harold and Maureen. And the final moment between the two of them is beautifully staged and beautifully played. Maybe even better than in the book because you have this balladeer character watching over the two of them fondly and then singing this uplifting final song. I think in many of the moments which precede that one, especially Harold's long awaited reunion with with Queenie, we could dip our toes just a little deeper into the cold waters of despair and sadness before rising once more out of them that happy and that uplifting that we feel is even more rewarding for really going there with the sorrow. And we almost do in this show. I just think it pulls a couple of its emotional punches. Those have, however, been absolutely all of my thoughts about the unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I am delighted to have a new British musical of this calibre open in the West End. It is only playing a limited run at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. If you liked shows like the Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Come From Away, if you like stories about community and reconnecting to the people around you, the people who you love, and to yourself. Elf stories about characters who go on a journey over the course of which they remember what truly matters, then go and check out the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I'm not saying that you have to walk from your front door to the theater, but it isn't on for long. Do try and get there as soon as you can and if you already have, then let me know what you thought of the show in the comments section down below. And if you'd like to hear more of my reviews, then make sure you're subscribed right here on YouTube or following me on podcast plus platform. Stay tuned for more thoughts on more shows very soon. And in the meantime, as always, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
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