ajhlovestheatre

KIMBERLY AKIMBO

Book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire based on his own play

Music by Jeanine Tesori

directed by Michael Longhurst 

Hampstead Theatre, London – until 7 November 2026

running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval 

https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2026/kimberly-akimbo/

Deserved winner of the 2023 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book and Best Original Score, Kimberly Akimbo is a deeply unconventional musical, and a thoroughly delightful one. It’s a far cry from what one might traditionally expect a Broadway musical to look and sound like, but it’s original yet accessible, small in scale but mighty in craft, ambition, and sheer, beautiful heart. We are so lucky to have it in London.

 New Jersey teenager Kimberly (Maria Friedman in a triumphant stage return) is a musical theatre heroine unlike any other: on the cusp of turning sixteen, she has a rare genetic disorder, affecting one in fifty million, that causes her to age four to five times faster than the average person. “Getting older is my affliction / getting older is your cure” she sings to her classmates at one point, with understandable frustration but an admirable absence of rancour. Note the undramatic way she asserts that people with her disorder usually don’t make it much past the age of sixteen: “it’s just an average though” she trills.

 David Lindsay-Abaire, the author of the original 2010 play, also provides the book and lyrics for the musical which may explain the extraordinary richness of the characters -a bunch of flawed, troubled yet relatable people elbowing their way through life as best they can- and the mastery of a variety of themes and tones that frequently promise one thing then deliver something quite different. Lindsay-Abaire clearly loves this bunch and, by extension, so do we. 

God, these people are messy though: heavily pregnant Mom Pattie (Niamh Perry) is a narcissistic hypochondriac, both arms in plaster from a carpal tunnel syndrome operation and forever making videos for the unborn child she clearly prefers to the under-appreciated diamond she already has, while Dad Buddy (Peter Hannah) is a feckless drunk, albeit one with a big heart. Plus there’s Aunt Debra (Alice Fearn), a convicted felon with a money-making cheque rinsing scheme and a serious lack of accountability, newly returned to the family to upset the moral and ethical apple cart. With this lot at home, it’s no surprise that Kimberly is so taken with her goofy but kind, probably neurodivergent, class mate Seth (Gilli Jones, adorable), who turns out to be an unexpected source of support.

 For Kimberly Akimbo, Lindsay-Abaire teams up again with Jeanine Tesori, his collaborator on the underrated Shrek The Musical. Tesori’s quirky, magical work here feels like a sister score to her stunning compositions for Caroline, Or Change and Fun Home whereby sophisticated, choppy, character-driven sections give way to pastiches of late twentieth century pop and folk that inform the period and characters. 

Thus Kimberly gets a bittersweet “I want” song near the top of the show, then there’s ‘Father Time’, a gorgeous lullaby for Pattie’s unborn child and possibly for the troubled Kimberly (breathtakingly performed by Perry, who is delivering multi-faceted, career-best work here) that goes from whimsical to profound within a few bars, and ‘Better’, a rambunctious, belty, poppy paean to consistently doing entirely the wrong thing with which Fearn pretty much stops the show. Hannah’s dead-beat Dad gets an improbable patter song that wouldn’t disgrace Gilbert and Sullivan, and the second half features an inspired section that pits a family dispute against a glitzy show choir rehearsal. It’s impressive theatre music that lingers in the memory, and not a single note is wasted.

 Lindsay-Abaire’s writing never descends into sentimentality or sensationalism and is frequently rollickingly funny. When it’s sad though, it really goes there: watch Friedman’s Kimberly’s face when her pregnant mother expresses hope that her next child will turn out better. It’s one of several moments when authentic pain seeps through and the poignancy is almost too much to bear.

Unusually, the UK premiere, directed by Michael Longhurst for Hampstead Theatre with consummate showbiz flair and an absolute mastery of the complex emotions and irresistible humour involved, is more physically elaborate than the Broadway original. Whereas Jessica Stone’s New York staging still bore traces of its modest off-Broadway origins, despite being amplified to such a level that suggested it was aiming to be heard in New Jersey from Manhattan, Longhurst and team have gone all-out, but mercifully the sound design (by Paul Groothuis) is more low key allowing us to hear the often brilliant lyrics.

Designer Soutra Gilmour recreates an entire three storey New Jersey house onstage, then revolves it to become a school corridor, a classroom, a neon-lit ice rink, with Nigel Lilley’s terrific band fully visible on either side of the action. It’s quite an eyeful, dominated by a giant clock as if to remind us all that we’re running out of time, albeit not as fast as poor Kimberly. The garishness of the late 1990s, when the show takes place, is evoked but never mocked.

The London cast is every bit the equal of the original New York company but are sufficiently different that comparisons are invidious. The writing is so good that there are several valid ways to play each role. Victoria Clark won the Tony for playing Kimberly and it’s hard to imagine that Friedman’s gawkier, more animated, but still very moving take on the role won’t be the front runner for this year’s Olivier award. 

Niamh Perry as her deeply dysfunctional mother is perhaps the biggest revelation here; she has a fabulous voice of course but she also reveals herself to be a comedienne of the highest order, balancing a degree of manic self-absorption with a deep well of feeling suggesting that, in her own screwed-up way, she’s as upset as anybody about her daughter’s health issues. Unlike with the original production, Perry and Fearn actually look as though they could be sisters. Where Bonnie Milligan -another deserving Tony winner for this show- made Debra into a lovable rogue, Fearn plays her feral. She is biliously funny but there’s an unsettling undercurrent of genuine desperation and threat.

Hannah also achieves the remarkable feat of melding together grotesque comedy and heart-rending truth in another sensational performance, and Gilli Jones as the well meaning youngster with innate kindness but a penchant for saying the wrong thing, really tugs at the heartstrings. Sara Hajizadeh, Ronav Jain, Robin Simões da Silva and Aviva Tulley are incredibly endearing, and often laugh-out-loud funny, as a sort of Geek/Greek Chorus of four teenagers, plus their voices really soar.

Primarily, Kimberly Akimbo becomes a show about grabbing life and squeezing every last drop out of it while you still can, and if that doesn’t gladden, then threaten to break, your heart, maybe book an appointment with a cardiologist to check if you even have one. This is life-enhancing theatre, a show you don’t just watch, you fall in love with. To quote one of the best numbers in the score, although pretty much every one is a gem, this’ll “make your shitty life better”. London has an exhilarating new must-see hit.