The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry review
Both a show that will make you cry and a musical that will make your heart sing.
Both a show that will make you cry and a musical that will make your heart sing.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is that rare and wonderful thing: a new musical that isn’t based on a blockbuster Hollywood movie or teen comedy. Not that there’s anything wrong with the stage adaptations of Back to the Future or Mean Girls, but this is a thoroughly British show that lovers of the Rachel Joyce book on which it’s based, and novices alike, will be delighted by.
Youngsters may well be tickled by its 60-something protagonist’s cluelessness about social media and buzzwords like YOLO (an acronym for “you only live once”), but we grown-ups are more likely to relate to his set-in-his-ways befuddlement as he heads off on an unexpected journey.
Even if you’ve seen the film version starring Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton, the musical reimagines the tale with wonderment and whimsy as it whisks Harold on a trek from South Devon to Berwick-on-Tweed to visit a dying woman from his past, much to the bemusement of his present wife.
As played with warmth to spare by Mark Addy, Fry is an accidental tourist who only meant to pop to the postbox but ends up on a 600-mile odyssey, on foot with not much money and no change of clothes, attracting media attention and a support group of fellow pilgrims.
Jenna Russell is his wife Maureen, who has become used to the mundanities of married life, like asking for the jam and being handed the marmalade instead. That’s a metaphor of sorts in the script that Joyce wrote herself, and which, under Katy Rudd’s direction, is full of similar observational details.
The music is by Passenger, the English indie musician (real name Michael David Rosenberg), whose love of folk is threaded through a score that also draws on gospel, country and even a good old-fashioned Astaire & Rogers tap dance, the twist being that this time it’s between two men. The lyrics are inventive, too, rhyming the likes of “reigning” with “mansplaining”, and “father” with “Bratislava”.
Stage musical veteran Russell sings her heart out as always, while Addy’s vocals are kept to a minimum. That works well as fanciful events unfold around his everyman on an extraordinary quest. Laundry comes to life, the dog he makes friends with en route is a scrappy puppet, there’s a singing nun, and pockets of little Britain are evoked in imaginative ways.
It’s a play that will make you cry (for reasons that I won’t spoil for those who are new to the story) and a musical that will make your heart sing. Like Harold, it’s had quite the journey, from book to film to Chichester Festival Theatre production to a West End transfer. Surely, a UK tour is on the cards next?
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, London until 18 April. Saga has teamed up with London Theatre Direct to offer you tickets at the best prices and with savings of up to 60%.
[Hero image credit: Tristram Kenton]
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