Into the Woods – Bridge Theatre

Jo Foster, Katie Brayben, Gracie McGonigal, Chumisa Dornford-May and Jamie Parker in Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre, London. Picture: Johan Persson

Into the Woods continues at the Bridge Theatre, London until 30 May 2026.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

There’s a problem with being a theatre lover beyond the curious case of your perpetually empty wallet. When you love a classic show to the extent you see multiple productions of it, it gets harder and harder to fully enjoy. This isn’t a case of becoming bored with the material – and I refuse to believe it is possible to become bored with Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods – but rather a case of us being spoiled.

Each new director’s interpretation of a piece of writing will find its own way of telling a certain joke or staging a certain scene. As you accumulate these experiences, your mental impression of the show becomes a composite of the best of the best. Any future director must compete with all these past productions as well as putting their own spin on the piece, resulting in a show that will surely let you down somewhere. Live theatre is mercurial like that. You may never fully enjoy your favourite show ever again.

Likewise, we’ve all heard the Brothers Grimm fairy tales a hundred times before, staged in every way imaginable. Into the Woods took these overtold tales and still managed to enrapture audiences around the world due to its genius approach. To this day it is one of Sondheim’s most popular shows. Famous stories are woven together in Act I, then their happy endings are dissected in a darkly metatextual Act II.

In many ways then, director Jordan Fein’s latest sojourn into these much-loved woods has its work cut out for it. Bridge Theatre has been the home of some truly innovative immersive takes on classics like Guys & Dolls and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in recent years and anticipation for this Into the Woods has been sky high. However, taking our seats in this auditorium with its traditional proscenium arch and distinct lack of novelty and gimmicks, these woods feel a bit safe.

There is none of Regent’s Park’s 2010 outdoor evening chills, no stripped-back actor-muso inventiveness of the 2016 Menier Chocolate Factory run, no hint of the maximalist surrealism of Terry Gilliam and Leah Hausman’s 2022 Bath production. Dig out the professionally shot original Broadway show on YouTube with its 1980s hip-hop drums and its nightmare-inducingly phallic Wolf costume and even that feels like a more adventurous take on the material.

Still, the material in question is Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book) at the peak of their powers. Virtually any staging of work at this level of genius is a wonderful night at the theatre. The approach of director Fein seems to be to strip away gimmicks but execute each element immaculately, ensuring there are no distractions from the emotional core of the play. It pays dividends.

Alongside the names of writers Sondheim and Lapine and director Fein on the poster is a fourth credit: set and costume designer Tom Scutt. His work on this show more than justifies that uncommon level of billing. In an age of barren stages and over-reliance on video projections, it is a joy to see such care put into creating a genuine visual feast. Roland Horvath provides tasty projection work in silhouette to create magical effects, birds and the notoriously tricky-to-stage appearance of the angry giant, but the majority of the breath taken away from the audience is drawn by the set’s gloriously literal woods.

Lighting designer Aideen Malone is another MVP here, with everything from sunbeams to strobes drawing us into the story. Adam Fisher’s sound design ranges from subtle woodland ambience to near-deafening, violent intrusions of destruction in the darker Act II. It is a delight to report that the undisputed lead role of Milky White the Cow is here performed with a puppet – puppets make all theatre better – but she is an adorably lo-fi creature. Individual elements here are impressive and enjoyable, without stealing focus from the piece as a whole.

The no-gimmicks approach extends to the music. Musical director Mark Aspinall’s 12-piece band is missing some of the original Broadway cast recording’s 1980s instrumentation, but they achieve a full and powerful effect with more traditional timbres. Fein has clearly led the cast in an ‘acting-over-vocals’ direction too, with generally positive returns. In some moments we might miss the technical purity of previous recordings – after all, these magnificent songs shine with excellent singers – but Sondheim himself always favoured actors who could sing over singers who could act. The focus on emotional honesty and fragile, human performance paid off as I found myself emotionally swept away by a play I could recite word-for-word in my sleep.

Which isn’t to say there isn’t vocal talent on the stage – this cast is stacked with superlative musical theatre performers. Fresh from Sondheim’s Here We Are at the National Theatre, Chumisa Dornford-May is a standout from the beginning as a remarkably self-assured and relatable Cinderella. Jamie Parker nails the tone of the lead role that so many productions fail to get quite right: the Baker. This character is arguably the main protagonist but can so easily become unlikeable in less capable hands. In a role of equal prominence – and arguably with even better songs – the fantastic Katie Brayben proves she deserves those two Olivier Awards and perhaps even a few more with her very real, very relatable and very very funny Baker’s Wife.

Kate Fleetwood is spellbinding in one of Sondheim’s richest roles: The Witch. She has all the best lines, of course, but she is also given the most complex emotional journey. As the world of fairy tales is shown to be an insufficient model of reality, she must present a cold rationality that is still lacking in the face of real-life complexity and human emotions. The deep philosophy underpinning this character’s role is communicated as effortlessly and as enjoyably as her hilarious one-liners and heartbreaking pathos. Her onstage chemistry with the superb Bella Brown’s Rapunzel is so convincing that it makes me wish this production featured their cut ‘Our Little World’ duet.

Other standouts are young Jack – to whom Jo Foster brings a winning northern naivety and gender-disregarding ebullience – and Little Red – imbued with delightful mischief and stage-commanding confidence by Gracie McGonigal. The uproarious ‘Agony’ numbers are always comedic highlights of this play and Oliver Savile and Rhys Whitfield are perfectly charming and insincere as the princes. Shoutout also to Hughie O’Donnell who makes comedic hay with the role of the royal family’s Steward, a significant but often overlooked character.

This Into the Woods is a perfect introduction to a show that new theatre fans will want to see over and over again. For Sondheim-obsessives, it might be even more of a treat: a chance to see one of the great composer’s classic pieces produced well, produced honestly, and produced seemingly without ego. Fein proves himself a fantastic director for marshalling the production’s various impressive elements into one effective and cohesive whole, but he should get a lot of credit also for having the humility to step back, look at the work, and present it as purely as possible. There are light touches of a unique vision everywhere, but none overwhelm. Instead, the material is allowed to shine.

In this world there are beautiful cityscapes, architectural marvels of concrete and glass, human-made wonders that will take your breath away. A walk through the woods often beats them all. Nature gives us beauty, and there is little we can do to improve on it. With this Into the Woods, Fein has respectfully shown us what a gorgeous show this is with no need for high-tech bells nor gimmicky whistles, but with just the right amount of good old-fashioned theatrical magic.

Ian Bowkett