ajhlovestheatre

THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY

Book by Rachel Joyce based on her own novel

Music and lyrics by Passenger 

adaptation co-created by Rachel Joyce, Peter Darling and Katy Rudd

directed by Katy Rudd

Theatre Royal Haymarket, London – until 18 April 2026

running time: 2 hours 20 minutes including interval 

https://trh.co.uk/whatson/harold-fry/

Rachel Joyce’s beloved debut novel, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, first published in 2012, has already spawned a popular film starring Jim Broadbent as the tormented retiree who undertakes an epic walk from Devon up to the Lake District for the unlikeliest but most noble of reasons. Now it’s a big-hearted musical with haunting songs by bestselling folk artist Passenger (real name: Mike Rosenberg) and a whirling, inventive production by Katy Rudd, arriving in the West End beefed-up from its well received Chichester premiere last year. 

It’s not hard to see the enduring appeal of this slightly tall tale of loss, sacrifice and the importance of appreciating what we have in our lives. It’s sentimental for sure but the emotional pay-offs in the story feel honest and earned: you can’t really argue with a roomful of sobbing patrons. Unlike the eponymous Harold’s journey though, this is no trudge, especially when dressed up with Passenger’s soaring music – all melodic hooks, folk beats and moments of rousing beauty – and in a staging that delights in the possibilities of theatrical storytelling, employing everything from puppetry to video to dance (the stompy, intermittently graceful choreography by Tom Jackson Greaves really hits the mark). 

As with her work on The Ocean At The End of The Lane and Ballet Shoes for the National, Rudd excels at marrying the mundane (Harold’s wife Maureen stewing discontentedly at home, their next door neighbour discussing how he disposes of grass cuttings…) with the fantastical, as individual stage pictures swirl by, delighting the eye and quickening the pulse. The more whimsical elements of the visual storytelling sometimes feel a little grafted on, but the bold theatricality consistently commands attention. 

Billy Elliot choreographer Peter Darling is credited as co-adapter, along with Rudd and Joyce, and his influence surely seems to be a factor in making exhilaratingly airborne a downbeat story one wouldn’t automatically expect to sing and dance, and burnishing it with an entrancing showbiz sheen. A scene in a railway station café transforms into a Busby Berkeley-esque tap extravaganza, a roadside garage car wash explodes into a zestful, glittering chorus line….

The changes in tone sometimes jar, and the whole thing is held together by the plangent uplift of the score and a glorious central performance by Mark Addy, combining irascible charm with almost classical intensity as Harold’s psyche and resolve fall apart. For much of the evening, his disapproving wife Maureen seems like a pretty thankless role by comparison, although the always exquisite Jenna Russell invests her with a flinty wit, and a wonderfully expressive singing voice capable of going from pinched resentment to full-throated emotionalism within a few bars. When she has a change of heart and opens back up to Harold, it’s tremendously affecting, and the sniffles throughout the auditorium throughout the final scene attest to how much the audience has invested in these two flawed but lovable characters. 

Joyce has adapted her own novel for the stage and, while it’s undoubtedly engaging, Harold’s odyssey has an episodic feel and an occasional lack of clarity as it jumps back and forth in time and introduces peripheral characters only to discard them minutes later. As a musical, it suffers from the commendable but frustrating desire to give apparently every character a song, although the sheer quality of Passenger’s work – at times reminiscent of Benjamin Button and Come From Away, both superior tuners but with a similar emotional wallop – means that at least the extraneous numbers are enjoyable.

In an excellent supporting cast, standouts include Daniel Crossley, a subtly outrageous delight as a tap-dancing gent with an unusual romantic dilemma, Madeleine Worrall as a kind but pithy Eastern European doctor who helps Harold, and Jenna Boyd, just gorgeous as a pragmatic farmer’s wife and a warm, golden-voiced singing nun (you’ve got to have a nun in a wholesome musical apparently). There’s equally fine work from Peter Polycarpou as a lonely neighbour and Maggie Service as the saintly co-worker who’s at the end of Harold’s arduous journey. Clarion-voiced Nicole Nyarambi stops the show as a diffident garage worker who sets Harold on his way. Noah Mullins brings presence and exciting vocals to the role of a Balladeer whose relevance to the central story becomes darker and more essential as the evening progresses.

Samuel Wyer’s woody, earthy set ingeniously marries Mother Nature with suburbia. In tandem with Paule Constable’s stunning lighting and video creations by Ash J Woodward that sometimes take the breath away with their simplicity and sheer beauty, suggests the wide open wonder of the countryside and the dark, claustrophobic inner workings of a troubled soul with equal vividness and skill. Gareth Tucker’s sound design ensures every lyric is heard although the company numbers could sometimes use a little more oomph. 

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry isn’t a perfect musical, but it is a richly enjoyable one. It’s a crowd pleaser full of heart, melody and humanity, and Addy is giving a performance for the ages. Go, and remember to bring hankies.