REVIEW: Barnum understudy rises to the challenge magnificently

With Lee Mead indisposed, Tom Sterling stepped up to the crucial central role of PT Barnum – and did so brilliantly. A measure of his performance was that you would never have known he wasn’t first choice in the role.

Barnum is the dreamer, the man who dreams big. More importantly, the man who tries to achieve his dreams through humbug, convinced that humbug and brass will ultimately get you everything that gold and silver can.

And so he dreams his way through scheme after scheme, from grandiose bizarre museums all the way to circuses via politics. Barnum is the man who orchestrates it all - and Sterling rose beautifully to an immense challenge.

Inevitably, all around him, it is busy, busy, busy all the way through. We’ve got an endless array of variety acts on stage from high wire to acrobatics and everything in between. Adding to the fun of it all is the live band on stage and, boy, the twin pianos are just mesmerising, particularly when there are four hands on each.

But maybe the musical’s big drawback – and one which keeps it from the top rank of such shows – is that it is a show about spectacle happy to remain at the level of spectacle.

Inevitably and unfairly, comparisons with The Greatest Showman creep in, and here you’ve got a show with massive emotional oomph, superior songs and complex characterisation that keep you absolutely hooked.

Barnum, for all the huge skill with which it is delivered, really rather floats over you – the spell rather broken tonight by people in the theatre who didn’t seem to have a clue how to behave in a theatre. Around us there were repeated comments, repeated half-started conversations and time and time again a fierce determination to get the bottom sweetie from a deep and very noisily-rustling bag. Annoying distractions.

The night saw lovely performances from Monique Young and Penny Ashmore as part of the package but you can’t help wishing it had grabbed at a rather deeper level.