Tom Morris's production is a visual delight that needs considerable streamlining and strengthening of tone if it is to amount to more than the musical theatre catch-all that it would seem to be at present.
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No, however much I try to put this stunning new British musical into a box, it crawls out and demands to be seen as its own deliciously strange thing...Whatever you call this moving, amusing oddity, I simply loved it.
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In Morris’s production, it all unfolds like a fevered, slightly bonkers but luridly compelling fairy story...The score has an organ-grinding, carnival quality.
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It is a remarkable, entrancing achievement and a treat for anyone who likes their storytelling with plenty of dark magic thrown in.
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The show’s rather triumphant finale is underpinned by chants of “hallelujah, praise to the Grinning Man”, and I’d be inclined to agree...it would benefit from losing ten minutes to keep up the second act’s pace, but it had me grinning.
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As one would expect from the creators of War Horse, the puppetry is miraculous...
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‘The Grinning Man’ is a brave stab at a new musical that’s no worse and far more interesting than most bog-standard West End fodder.
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The music from Tim Phillips and Marc Teitler is copious but largely unmemorable and the singing is too often unexceptional.
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