Goodnight Mister Tom

Synopsis

The Chichester Festival Theatre production of Goodnight Mister Tom by the Children's Touring Partnership comes to the West End's Phoenix Theatre following a UK tour. Olivier award-winner Oliver Ford Davies reprises his role as Mister Tom.

Sad and troubled, young William Beech is evacuated to the idyllic English countryside as Britain stands on the brink of World War II and is billeted with the curmudgeonly recluse Tom Oakley. Tom and Will build a remarkable and moving friendship, an unlikely bond which transforms them both, only to have their newfound happiness shattered when Will is summoned back to London by his mother.

Heart-warming and inspiring, this story of two broken souls at opposite ends of the age scale celebrates the value of love and proves that friendship knows no barriers.

Perfect for schools and families; Book tickets now for this children's classic based on the novel by Michelle Magorian.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 28 November 2012

The best thing about David Wood's new play for children based on Michelle Magorian's novel is the opportunity to sit once again in the Phoenix Theatre, an art deco temple occupied these last two decades by Willy Russell's Blood Brothers.

It's a plush setting for so simple and sentimental a story, in which an abused London boy - beaten and bullied by his Bible-thumping mother - forms a dependent friendship with curmudgeonly old Tom Oakley in the heart of the Dorset countryside during the last war.

Little William Beech (touchingly played by Ewan Harris at the performance I saw) is a war-time evacuee. His mother has stipulated a religious supervision, but Tom, like Shakespeare's Feste, does live by the church, and not necessarily in it, although he's the caretaker.

Stooping, grumbling and shaking his old white hairs like an ancient sage, Oliver Ford Davies skilfully manages to make Tom - who has lost his own wife and child 40 years previously - ...

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Latest User Review

Claire - 17 January 2013:

Absolutely loved it. I cant undrstand why it has been given two stars by WOS? ...

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