Into the Woods West End Reviews

Tom Scutt's design is stunning; a black backdrop opens to reveal the lush and magical woods behind, where dappled light dances through the trees. This is starkly contrasted by the snapped tree trunks and dark corners after the unseen Giant's interven...

Tom Scutt's design is stunning; a black backdrop opens to reveal the lush and magical woods behind, where dappled light dances through the trees. This is starkly contrasted by the snapped tree trunks and dark corners after the unseen Giant's intervention. Scutt's costumes are also a wonder, medieval design with modern colours and textures-except the Narrator (played by a thoughtful Michael Gould), who is dressed like an anonymous middle manager at a conference.

While Sondheim is the marquee name, the book and lyrics are by James Lapine (who also did the honours for Sunday in the Park with George and Passion). He naturally does a tremendous job – his lyrics are sometimes hilariously bathetic, sometimes for...

While Sondheim is the marquee name, the book and lyrics are by James Lapine (who also did the honours for Sunday in the Park with George and Passion). He naturally does a tremendous job – his lyrics are sometimes hilariously bathetic, sometimes formally audacious, sometimes devastatingly poignant, often all three in a single song. But every second is filled with Sondheim’s presence: his lush, motif-saturated score of baroque nursery rhymes feels as vividly alive as the forest itself.

The cast bring bags of charm: Jack is ultra-feminine, Red Ridinghood appears like a fearless girl guide, the Wolf (Oliver Savile) a vulpine version of David Niven, it seems, and the Witch (Kate Fleetwood) is both comically evil and wronged. The Baker...

The cast bring bags of charm: Jack is ultra-feminine, Red Ridinghood appears like a fearless girl guide, the Wolf (Oliver Savile) a vulpine version of David Niven, it seems, and the Witch (Kate Fleetwood) is both comically evil and wronged. The Baker and his wife’s struggles to conceive come weighted with feeling. After she marries the prince, you feel the yearning of Cinderella (Chumisa Dornford-May) for the old days when she could simply take off to the woods and talk to the birds.

Fein and Scutt collaborated last year on a radical and revelatory Fiddler on the Roof, and here they once again work with the musical supervisor Mark Aspinall to make Sondheim not only look but sound fresh, with Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations dia...

Fein and Scutt collaborated last year on a radical and revelatory Fiddler on the Roof, and here they once again work with the musical supervisor Mark Aspinall to make Sondheim not only look but sound fresh, with Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations dialling up the darkness inside the lyrical score. Adam Fisher provides a terrifyingly good sound design that makes the appearance of a Giant absolutely convincing, even though you never see her as she tramples the set, leaving a desolate landscape in place of the glorious possibility of the original forest.

Aideen Malone supplies inarguably the year’s best lighting design. Huge shafts of expressive light come flooding through the trees to completely change the atmosphere and suggest an otherworldly presence. But then Fein’s production is packed with...

Aideen Malone supplies inarguably the year’s best lighting design. Huge shafts of expressive light come flooding through the trees to completely change the atmosphere and suggest an otherworldly presence. But then Fein’s production is packed with unforgettable painterly visuals, such as Rapunzel posed in her tower like the Virgin Mary in a stained-glass window. It has mischievous fun too: Jack’s cow is an adorable open-mouthed puppet, while the princes have 80s tennis player-esque bouffant hair and headbands, and comically large codpieces.

Adam Fisher’s thunderous sound design provides a fine impersonation of a lumbering, unseen giantess seeking revenge for the death of her husband. Kate Fleetwood spits venom as the Witch, while the two princes (Oliver Savile and Rhys Whitfield) are ...

Adam Fisher’s thunderous sound design provides a fine impersonation of a lumbering, unseen giantess seeking revenge for the death of her husband. Kate Fleetwood spits venom as the Witch, while the two princes (Oliver Savile and Rhys Whitfield) are engagingly over-the-top on Agony. Gracie McGonigal’s Little Red Ridinghood [sic] is drenched in convincing gore in her grand guignol moment. Jamie Parker and Katie Brayben win our sympathy as the baker and his wife.

A plot that could easily become convoluted is instead brisk and hypnotic, Sondheim’s jaunty music keeping step with lyrics that have their own springy levity. Fein initially positions his lead cast around a work-table, with Michael Gould markedly u...

A plot that could easily become convoluted is instead brisk and hypnotic, Sondheim’s jaunty music keeping step with lyrics that have their own springy levity. Fein initially positions his lead cast around a work-table, with Michael Gould markedly understated as the show’s Narrator. Then designer Tom Scutt reveals a woodland scene with tree-trunks so tangible and foliage so lush, you want in on the adventure, too. The moral of the tale, of course, is to be careful what you wish for: the second half, in which discord, death and disaster stalk a ravaged landscape, dismantles “happy ever afters”.

As is customary, Oliver Savile doubles the role of Cinderella’s prince with that of the wolf salivating over Gracie McGonigal’s wonderfully bratty Red Ridinghood. His pervy song Hello Little Girl has not dated so well. After various shenanigans, ...

As is customary, Oliver Savile doubles the role of Cinderella’s prince with that of the wolf salivating over Gracie McGonigal’s wonderfully bratty Red Ridinghood. His pervy song Hello Little Girl has not dated so well. After various shenanigans, including the Grimm-faithful mutilation and blinding of Cinderella’s wicked sisters, the first half ends in marriage and pregnancy. The songs “So Happy” and “Ever After” ironically foreshadow the darkness to come.