Moominvalley in November – Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Moominvalley in November continues until 16 November 2025 at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

It’s the perfect time of year to enter the world of Moominvalley from the vantage point of the top of Highgate Hill. A swirling stormy and ghostly soundscape sets the tone for this compellingly atmospheric new musical.

Hans Jacob Hoeglund’s score is imaginatively orchestrated by Jen Green for the compact band of this in-house company which combines numerous instruments into intriguing harmonies, successfully echoing the autumn weather brewing outside the comforting hidey-hole of this welcoming little theatre while snuggled under crochet blankets.

The slick production zips along like swirling autumn leaves, creating a colourful watchable experience underpinned by quite profound questions, making it suitable for adults as well as children. A thoughtful adaptation of Tove Jansson’s final story about friends of Finn Family Moomintroll, it’s a valedictory homage which overrides its melancholy undertones to construct an upbeat story; the suggestion being that encounters with others can positively shape personal philosophical quests to find ways to live better. It is also extremely well cast and costumed.

Toft who has never actually met the Moomins leads the audience through the whole experience, for, in Moominvalley: “No one’s ever turned away; you can always come and stay.” Izzie Winter’s characterisation of this perpetual child captures the nervous caution with which everything is approached when it is all so new.

The Moominhouse stands tall at the centre of this miniature Moominworld. There are some restrictions on the space, due to the decision to foreground the house, which prevents a sense of journeying as the characters wander to and fro and means that some of the action has to happen offstage.

Led further by Snufkin, expertly played by actor-musician Matthew Heywood, who welcomes Toft to a camp fire and is searching to reclaim five lost bars of music haunting his harmonica, we encounter five further strangers in what appears to be a deserted Moomin heritage site. Abigail Yeo as Mymble makes a stunning entrance to this Moomin theme park, immediately sparkling with enthusiasm for all things Moomin.

This captivating show offers both newcomers and returnees to Moominvalley insights into why and how Moomin life matters, utilising the turn of the season as a crossroads at which to question assumptions from earlier Moomin stories, such as that – maybe – all the important things happen in the spring.

According to Grandpa Grumble, a beguiling onlooker with a slippery shuffle comically played by Martin Callaghan, spring seems the way “things are supposed to be”, when fishes are leaping in the brook or is it a stream, or a river, depending on your size and point of view.

Jane Quinn as Mrs Fillyjonk – surely a Queen of her tribe? – brings an up close and personal dimension into the space to embody the character with the deepest sense of confusion who really really needs a break. Her attempts to substitute as Moominmamma are doomed and the pitiful replication which opens Act II of a Moomin picnic with hot soup – to turn November back into May – triggers stupendously scathing facial expressions from Yeo as the teenage Mymble and returns us all to feeling cold.

Quinn’s powerful performance is an irritating joy to watch because of how effectively she portrays a quite disturbed isolated individual coming to terms with obsessions that affect her more than they do others. It is she who kindly brings hope back with a shadow play featuring Moomin cutouts, who adopts Mymble and strides off with her suitcase in an image straight out of Jansson’s own illustrations for her books.

The resolutions of the individual stories deliver a sobering message that no one is quite what they seem and a group is not necessarily a family they are compelled to belong to. Each of the characters’ journeys which have returned them temporarily to the focal point of the Moominhouse are skilfully threaded through individual songs and ensembles building solutions for the five who choose life beyond the valley. It is refreshing to see how, in the end, they each make a personal decision about their future.

The tinkering, over-organising Hemulen, charismatically depicted by Stuart Simons, is relieved to give up sailing, leaving the boat moored on the beach to Toft, providing his stowaway officially with a longed-for home. Snufkin finds his music and rambles off, kettle attached, at ease wherever he goes. Wherever lovable Grandpa Grumble returned to he is sure to have been received with open arms.

Only Toft remains but now at least living in the shadow of the Moomins they adore. Toft summons all their strength to the ending of this show, in the tremendous vocal number ‘I Can See Them’, which sees them traverse and embrace the entire set, wonderfully preventing the action from just petering out with the oncoming snow.

This ending proves that this adaptation – which is so well directed by Amanda Noar with Isaac Bernier-Doyle – is successful because the music raises it above dramatic storytelling. Although the stove is never lit, honouring Moominmamma’s instruction in the note that eventually resurfaces, so as not to burn the ancestor, Toft’s final burst of enthusiasm is truly heart-warming.

The appropriately-named Winter imparts a winter facing glow, shining light on the continuing impact of the Moomins fantasy on so many fans. It is no mean feat for a young solo performer to so successfully close a show alone on stage. If “In Moominvalley, life is almost like a song”, then the final number resonates with the continuing impact of Moominvalley’s fantasy world on so many fans.

Charlotte Purkis