'Barnum' at the Menier Chocolate Factory

'Barnum' is a big show so how will it play at a more bijou theatre like the Choccy Factory? The dreary days of January are the perfect time to find out, grey outside and full of colour inside. It's also full of circus acts, singing, energetic dancing, giant elephants, tight-rope walking, invisible lions, flame eating and everything else you'd expect from the greatest show on earth - except that we don't see 'the greatest show on earth', we see everything that leads up to it.

I'd never seen 'Barnum' before so the story was new to me. It tells the tale of PT Barnum, a showman living off humbug and blarney married to his young wife with their children. We see his career grow as he gradually finds his role, always yearning for the colour and magic of performance and, seemingly, getting it. His wife is his stalwart critic and supporter and it's her that sends him to Europe to hire a famous singer to bring back to America. He brings the singer and then has an affair with her, leaving his wife to run the family business. He ultimately goes back to his wife, tries to settle down, gets into politics and then his wife dies. He then meets Mr Bailey who seeks his advice on setting up a new circus and the show ends when he agrees to join Bailey to produce the greatest show on earth.

It's a fast-moving monster of a show that somehow fits into the Choccy factory. I don't know how, but it does. For the first time in its history, the Choccy has transformed the bar/box office area to create a circus atmosphere with the walls covered in canvas with adverts for the various acts, signs on doors to warn of dangerous animals (the lion lived behind one of those doors) and the theatre space is now a circus ring. I heartily approve.

I loved it and have decided that I will run away and join a circus when I grow up. Some of the cast seem to have had some circus training to perform their acts, there are singers and dancers aplenty and a special shout out to Danny Collins who played a couple of roles. I thought Marcus Brigstocke (Barnum) and Laura Pitt-Pulford (Mrs Barnum) had a great on-stage presence together, nicely playing off each other. I found it hard to hear Marcus Brigstocke singing (a problem with the mic?) but that's my only criticism of the show. It's great fun! Such great fun, in fact, that I've already got tickets to see it again!