Review Roundup: ONCE Opens in West End!

The London production of Once opened last night, April 9 at The Phoenix Theatre and is currently booking to 30 November 2013. Once has book by award-winning Irish playwright and screenwriter Enda Walsh. Based on the 2007 motion picture written and directed by John Carney, music and lyrics are by Academy Award winning Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová who, for Falling Slowly, won the Oscar for Best Original Song. Scenic and costume designs are by Bob Crowley, with lighting by Natasha Katz, sound by Clive Goodwin, musical supervision and orchestrations by Martin Lowe and movement by Steven Hoggett. The Martin Guitar Company is the proud sponsor of Once.

The cast comprises Declan Bennett and Zrinka Cviteši? as Guy and Girl respectively, joined by Valda Aviks, Ryan Fletcher, AiDan Kelly, Gareth O'Connor, Michael O'Connor, Miria Parvin, Jos Slovick, Flora Spencer-Longhurst, Jez Unwin and Gabriel Vick. Alternating the role of Girl's young daughter Ivanka will be Poppy-Lily Baker, Mia-Jai Bryan, Pacha Anna Green and Nancy Ann Jeans.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard: Cviteši? is eager, almost forceful, yet shows us the wrenching effects of being torn between two destinies. Bennett isn't especially charismatic, but sings with a striking mix of passion and vulnerability. Their intimacy feels completely authentic. The result is a slow burner. Once doesn't have big stars or a strong plot, and there are too many silences. For all its inherent gentleness it's not exactly family-friendly either. But it has a delicate soulfulness and a truthful charm.

Paul Taylor, The Independent: This company's wonderful instrumental playing, comic characterisations and supple stylised movement offsets the shortcomings in the over-protracted love story and make it well worth giving Once the once-over.

Michael Billington, The Guardian: It's the staging that for me makes the evening work beautifully. Songs erupt naturally from the action, helped by the fact that the cast all play a variety of instruments including fiddle, guitar, drums, accordion and mandolin. The actor-musicians also effortlessly become characters in the story with striking contributions from Michael O'Connor as Guy's ruminative dad, Jez Unwin as a musical bank-manager and Flora Spencer-Longhurst as a bouncing Czech. Above all, Crowley's design of a curving Dublin bar festooned with mirrors allows you to catch fragments of a floor-pattern or a face in a way that matches the elliptical story-telling.

Libby Purves, The Times: Sometimes you need to be in a pub. An Irish pub, with musicians joshing and blending and drumming and plucking. To join in a noisy Wild Rover but moments later share melancholy stillness as one voice sings a plaintive ballad.

Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph: There is a genuine tenderness between the main couple, though neither Declan Bennett nor Zrinka Civite?si´c prove quite as touching as the stars of the film. The dialogue is often cheesy - "We always need to follow our dream and not give in to fear" - and it is hard to warm to the wet hero, so obtuse that he fails to recognise that the Czech girl loves him and offers a better chance of happiness than if he went back to his old girlfriend. But my frequent impatience with this show certainly didn't seem to be shared by most of the audience, who rose as one to applaud Once.

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