REVIEW | Little Women, UK tour - The Lowry Theatre
- Harry Brogan
- Apr 10
- 2 min read
AD | Gifted tickets in exchange of an honest review
Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel tells the tale of the March family, finding love, loss and creative ambition as they grow together against the backdrop of the American Civil War. This stage adaptation by Anne-Marie Casey focus on the second sister, Jo, who wants to be a writer, and follows her and her sisters through the struggles of poverty and other life events.
One of the things I liked about the production was how it was a strong female cast, with Belinda Lang, Honeysuckle Weeks, Grace Molony, Jade Kennedy, Catherine Chalk and Imogen Elliott leading the cast, alongside appearances from Jack Ashton and Cillian Lenaghan. The cast all worked strongly together, and portrayed the struggles of the March family, and their other connections in the perfect way, and perfectly respected some of the themes that came up whilst the play progressed.
With also the shows costume design was brilliant in capturing what people would’ve worn at the time in the different classes, especially in poverty.
Ruari Murchison's set design all throughout the show, stayed mostly similar, and was also a highlight, and set the tone that was to be conveyed. It perfectly showed what a more rural America in the 1860s would have looked like, and around Christmas time too. The fake snow adding to the charm at the appropriate times, with also helping adding to the overall ambience.
Despite these strengths, I felt the first act of the show was rather slow in parts, with certain scenes being more prolonged than others, which impacted others scenes feeling not having as much focus, in comparison to act two as well. This made it, for me, harder to follow throughout, and came to the interval with a few more questions than I did before going in.
The second act, whilst still feeling slow in parts, the pacing felt faster and had more of a plot than what the first act did, which made me, and other patrons around me, more engaged with the plot. Additionally, there were issues with the acoustics and sound at times. The overall design by Matthew Bugg was very strong, with his compositions also fitting the overall theme of the show, however, there were varying levels of how well this was used within the space at the Lowry, meaning some parts were harder to hear than others.
Overall, the show has a good basis, with a strong cast and brilliant costume design, however there were fundamental flaws with the acoustics and length of the show which let the production down. It could be the perfect show to represent poverty within the American Civil War, but it falls short of what it could do.
★★.5
Little Women is at the Lowry until April 12th, and continues on its UK tour, until June.
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