Barnum
Palace Theatre Manchester
10th February 2026
Long before The Greatest Showman was a movie sensation, Michael Crawford also played Phineas Taylor Barnum in a stage production that was a smash hit in the West End and on Broadway.
It’s back on the road with former Casualty Star Lee Mead taking on Barnum’s famous tightrope walk that is such an iconic part of this warm hearted show. Playing Barnum is a big role that requires great stamina, as the endlessly optimistic impresario is rarely offstage, as he’s such a huge personality.
Barnum’s flamboyant life story is perfect musical theatre material as Mark Bramble’s book brings to life a consummate showman who won’t be deterred from his goal to create the greatest ever circus. If he bends the truth a little, who cares, because as he sings in the brash opening number: ‘There Is A Sucker Born Every Minute’.
Along Barnum’s rocky road to fame, we meet a rich cast of people he puts in his museum and circus shows, including Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, whom our hero falls in love with, betraying his long-suffering wife Charity, who has helped him realise his dreams. Barnum dismisses his stretching of the truth as mere ‘humbug’, including making his fortune with the world’s oldest woman, whom he claims is 160 years old. Dominque Planter has great fun with the elderly fraudster and nails her big number, Thank God I’m Old.
This is a genuine onstage spectacular where you hardly know where to look as there is so much going on all over Lee Newby’s big set that does make it feel like a circus ring with acrobats tumbling round the stage and soaring on ropes high up into the air. As if that wasn’t enough, an elephant that Barnum claims to be the biggest in the world walks onstage at one point.
So many shows these days have a cast of actors/musicians, but Barnum takes it to a different level with 20 actors skillfully playing a staggering 150 different instruments. The marching band sequence in Come Follow The Band is exhilarating, as the whole cast cavort around the stage, with choreography by Strictly winner Oti Mabuse.
It takes a big personality to carry this show, so the charming Mead, who has a voice that can fill this big theatre, brings all his West End experience to make Barnum more than a loudmouth showman as he cleverly navigates his many highs and lows. His duet with the impressive Monique Young playing Charity with great warmth on the wistful Colours of My Life is full of pathos.
Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart’s score probably lacks any genuine showstoppers, but their tunes are strong and really help drive along a very busy narrative
It’s refreshing that a classic show like Barnum is touring once again after a long break, and the producers have recruited a talented all-action ensemble who recreate the magic of a circus. Mead spent six months training to step onto the high wire, and I won’t tell you if he made it – you’ll have to find that out for yourselves.
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Barnum is at Manchester’s Palace Theatre until Saturday, 14th February.
To find out more, go here: or to book
Photo by Pamela Raith
Words by Paul Clarke
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