Did critics enjoy their stay at Fun Home?
© Marc Brenner
Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage
★★★★★
"There are some showstopping numbers, with Tesori's music flexing and changing to suit the mood and meaning of Kron's words. There's a scene where Small Alison and her young brothers break into a Jackson Three routine around a coffin, another where psychedelic lighting (courtesy of Ben Stanton) transforms the stage into a Partridge Family parody, a sharp contrast with the reality Alison is now experiencing. Danny Mefford's choreography plays its part in the impact of such routines, but it matters too in more simple ways: the moments when the characters are simply strung across the stage, isolated from each other by squares of light, are equally impressive."
What's wonderful about Fun Home is the way it uses its effects to reach directly into the heart of feeling. Medium Alison's exuberant ballad about her first night with her lover Joan (Cherrelle Skeete) – "I'm changing my major to sex with Joan" – is both a joyful cry of realisation and a perfect summation of all the feelings (fear, enthusiasm, tenderness, wit) that she has encountered. Small Alison sings of love to a delivery woman, who makes her realise you don't always have to feel uncomfortable in your own skin, and just about breaks your heart with the clarity of that recognition.
Tim Bano, The Stage
★★★★★
"Each of the Alisons is superb: from Brooke Haynes' small Alison (alternating with Harriet Turnbull) working out she's gay in the sublime "Ring of Keys", to Eleanor Kane's gabbling and awkward medium Alison finding a girlfriend, to Kaisa Hammarlund as the adult version, gentle and assured."
"The show tackles the hardships of coming out, but also moves beyond that narrative. It's much more about parenthood, and families as places where micro tyrannies – like that of Alison's dad Bruce – can have devastating effects. The dark heart of the show is Zubin Varla as Bruce. With growling voice and slightly affected air, he's a knot of self-disgust and self-obsession."
Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out
★★★★★
"It is a remarkable story, with remarkable performers, that's even more remarkable for its structure – spinning and swirling and ducking and diving in kaleidoscopic fragments, with the ‘songs' often just beautifully elevated snatches of dialogue, it bustles with all the energy and joy of nostalgia and discovery of life, almost ebulliently whirling to its final point of tragedy."
"Saying it's the best new musical we've seen since Hamilton is a bit meaningless when Hamilton only opened six months ago – but the same would apply if it was six years ago. And if it doesn't storm the West End in fairly short order then the world is even more screwed than we thought it was."
Paul Taylor, The Independent
★★★★★
"There's a stunning moment in Gold's excellent production when the bleak white wall that has evoked an unhappy New York trip rises and we get a deep view of Bechdel drawing room in all its full, fussed-over, sterile grandeur. In some ways, the spectacle is more bleak than the wall and, as the wife who has absorbed and suppressed the knowledge of all her husband's gay infidelities, Jenna Russell is devastating in "Days and Days", a song of angry regret that she has wasted her life as assistant curator in this museum."
"The show has two big pastiche numbers – a Jackson 5 spoof that Small Alison and her brothers perform round one of the caskets ("We got Kleenex and your choice of psalm/Think of Bechdel when you need to embalm") and, replete with psychedelic lightning, "Raincoat of Dreams", a Partridge Family parody that's grotesquely at variance with Alison's actual home life. "
Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard
★★★★
"Director Sam Gold captures the writing's delicate wistfulness — the book and lyrics are by Lisa Kron — and the result is a refreshingly unconventional 100-minute show. Eloquent about the mysteries of the parent-child bond, it's above all fascinated by children's endless capacity to be bemused by the very people who brought them into the world. "
Ann Treneman, The Times
★★★★
"It sounds complicated, but the whole production flows like a river through what is, ultimately, a sung reflection of memory. Alison's mother, Helen, conflicted and reflective, is played with great heart and soul by Jenna Russell, but it is her father, Bruce, an intense Zubin Varla, who preoccupies all the Alisons: he's tyrant and circus master, demanding, secretive, caring, but fun too. He also approaches furniture restoration as if it were a sport, creating a home that looks like something out of the Antiques Roadshow attic."
"Oh home, not so sweet as it happens, home. Sam Gold, who directed the Broadway version, does the same here and there is often magic in the air. The designer David Zinn has created an intriguing set that is also, in terms of the Bechdel home, period perfect. (Those fussy couches look so uncomfortable.) The whole shebang is less than two hours, straight through, and you will never be bored and you will also, certainly, have fun."
Michael Billington, The Guardian
★★★★
"[Alison] Bechdel described her work as "a family tragicomic", and that ambivalence of tone is faithfully preserved in the musical. Two of Tesori's numbers evoke a radiantly cheerful past: in one, the small Alison and her siblings leap out of a casket to belt out a jokey funeral-parlour commercial; in another the whole company dance to a finger-snapping tune celebrating the joys of togetherness. Yet the show is also about the lies and evasions that are part of family life. "
"Some questions still go unaddressed: if Bruce's sexuality is an open secret, how come he avoids smalltown prejudice for so long? But Sam Gold's production gives the discrete episodes a miraculous fluency and is beautifully performed. Kaisa Hammarlund, as the mature Alison, has the permanent watchfulness of the visual artist, Eleanor Kane as her student-self blossoms memorably, and Brooke Haynes shows astonishing assurance as the small Alison."
