Little Women UK Tour - Theatre Royal Plymouth Review

Originally published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’ has been enchanting and captivating readers and audiences of both stage and screen for many years (the first film adaptation came in silent form in 1917, five short years after it first came to the stage on Broadway). It is a story of four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March, and their journey from childhood to adulthood, balancing poverty, love, loss and personal growth as they each try to find their place in the world.

Adapted by Anne-Marie Casey and directed by Loveday Ingram, this new stage adaptation allows comedy and heartfelt poignancy to run equally side by side as audiences see sisters do what comes naturally, bickering, teasing and taking things too far without losing the love and the bonds that hold them together, no matter what.

Grace Molony’s Jo March is determined and passionate, stubborn in her refusal to act older than her years and be the perfect high society woman. She drives the story forward as we follow her through her time with Laurie (Cillian Lenaghan) and her journey to independence as she dreams of becoming a writer. Her bond with Catherine Chalk’s Beth is as charming as her fights with Amy (Imogen Elliott) are fiery, and with Lenaghan’s full of cheeky energy, heart of gold Laurie we see her inner child given the freedom she longs for.

Jade Kennedy’s Meg and Elliott’s Amy feel the responsibility to be the women of society, for someone has to marry into money to keep the family above the poverty line. Elliott’s Amy wants to be that one, and longs to be seen as more than the baby of the family, and Kennedy’s Meg dreams of silk and perfectly fitting gloves, until her head is turned by Brooke, the tutor of neighbour Laurie. Ellie Pawsey played Marmee at this performance, creating a heartfelt mother who just wants the best for her girls, whilst trying her best to hide how difficult she finds things herself. A soft and gentle character, very much an opposite to Belinda Lang’s Aunt March, powerful and commanding, knowing her place in society and how to use it to its full advantage.

Cillian Lenaghan’s Laurie earns many a laugh, bouncing around the stage with boundless energy as he becomes a brother to the March sisters, a companion of many years to Jo and a young man trying to find his own path. Jack Ashton doubles up on roles here, playing Brooks in act one and Bhaer in act two. He makes this look easy to do, creating two very different characters. Brooks is reserved, calm and gentle whilst Bhaer is a much more open book, a dreamer with strong morales who wears his heart on his sleeve.

Considering that this production is based on a book of around 400 pages, this show boasts a running time of around 2 hours and 20 minutes, not including the interval. As someone who may not have read the book, or seen one of the many different film adaptations, I didn’t know every detail of the story but knew many of the main points, and due to a rather imbalanced split between the running lengths of each act, I felt that many of these well known plot points happened in the first half. The first act itself runs for nearly 90 minutes, feeling a little slow and lengthy in places, and I found myself feeling that the interval could have easily come earlier after other big moments. The second act is roughly 50 minutes, and some of the biggest moments of this act felt a little rushed in places, and I can’t help but think that added, but not completely needed detail, could be scaled down from the first act to create a more even split and an overall more balanced running time.

Overall, ‘Little Women’ is a charming piece of theatre, full of love of both romantic and the sisterly kind. Whilst romance in the relationships that Jo, Meg, Amy, Brooks, Laurie and Bhaer find themselves in may be narrative driving points, it is the love of the March family itself that gives this piece its true heart for they may not have much in the world that seems that be near constantly against them, they have each other.