Paddington The Musical, Savoy Theatre (London)
Truly this is a great bear. An Ursa Major, as former BBC astronomer Patrick Moore might have said. Or, as the kids of today might put it, the new Paddington musical is ‘bear lit, bro’.
The eagerly anticipated show, based on Michael Bond’s children’s books, and drawing on the film starring Hugh Bonneville and Nicole Kidman, looks like a fixture – set to stay at the top of the West End tree for the foreseeable.
Normally such hits need a star, and here that star is surely the costume. Stepping out onto the Paddington station stage, the golden-fleeced, forest-dwelling Peruvian asylum seeker triggers waves of rapturous delight.
Not only does he blink bashfully, his little puzzled muzzle wrinkles with extreme pathos – and off-the-Richter-scale cuteness. When he turns to wiggle his tiny behind, he gets the kind of reception normally reserved for a 40-point Samba on Strictly.
So the bear necessities – designed by Tahra Zafar – are genius. But Paddington is a team effort. His voice is delivered from the wings by James Hameed, while the costume itself is inhabited by Arti Shah.
She has the little fella’s adorable wiggle off pat. And yet, the voice… am I wrong to miss the oh so cuddly tones of Ben Whishaw?
But let’s not forget, there’s also a musical attached to the costume, with comic, anthemic and shamelessly sappy songs by Tom Fletcher (of yesteryear’s boy band, McFly).
Toe-tappers include the theme of fabulous villainess Millicent Clyde (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt), Pretty Little Dead Things.
Also quickening the pulse is a carnival number, The Rhythm Of London, which drives the theatrical equivalent of an open-top bus tour.
And in Hard Stare we are reminded how bad manners can arouse Paddington’s ursine wrath.
A mildly raucous music hall number, It’s Never Too Late, is led by double-jointed Bonnie Langford as the Scottish housekeeper who lives in Primrose Hill with the Brown family, who adopt Paddington.
And the big finale is an ode to love and kindness that owes a riff or two to Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart.
Amy Ellen Richardson is thoroughly wholesome as Paddington’s champion, Mrs Brown, but the big laughs are administered by comic virtuoso Tom Edden as the miserable stickler cabbie with a disconsolate scrape-over wig.
His conversion to Seville orange conserve while taking tea with Paddington at the National Gallery cues the psychedelic showstopper Marmalade (with the lyric ‘I don’t know if I should admit it, I’d take a sticky shower in it’).
Edden’s Mr Curry is, however, run close for best character by Hamilton-Barritt’s baddie, who outrageously mixes Frances Barber with Margaret Thatcher on her mission to see Paddington stuffed.
There is also Amy Booth-Steel’s pith-helmeted, unctuously officious secretary of the Geographers’ Guild, Lady Sloane.
But almost stealing the marmalade sandwich is Hank, the pigeon puppet (operated by Ben Redfern), who lives in a wheelie bin and squawks cockney rhyming slang.
Dare I say there are bear sceptics? My teenage daughter, not fooled by the fur, sided with the Brown’s teenage daughter Judy (Delilah Bennett-Cardy) in condemning Paddington as ‘annoying’ for trashing the family home and costing Dad his job.
For her, Mr Brown (Adrian Der Gregorian), the risk-averse risk assessor who wants Paddington out, was ‘the only sane member of the family’.
And, most amusingly, a set of sensible-looking mums behind us were reduced to paroxysms of suffocated mirth when Paddington takes an arrow towards the end (spoiler alert: he recovers).
But that’s also the balance Luke Sheppard’s fun-loving production strikes: adding a pinch of salt to ensure the saccharine message about kindness saving the world isn’t quite as corny as the Peruvian maize drink chicha morada.
Tourists are likely to swell the producers’ coffers, thanks to Tom Pye’s monumental fantasy London staging – in particular the glorious Natural History Museum set complete with dodo, stuffed giraffes and the butt-end of a brontosaurus skeleton.
There are also skylines, a life-sized black cab and an endangered red pillar box. But ominously for Paddington, the King’s Guards feature, too, wearing their famous red jackets… and giant bearskin hats.
Paddington The Musical is running until October 2026
