Barnum

It's a neat idea, while the Chichester Festival Theatre is being refurbished why not carry on productions in a tent in the park; not an original idea but a good one. What makes it better is to go the whole hog and put on a production of Barnum, making the big top less of a tempoprary structure and more a seamlessly integrated part of the season!

The setting really is fabulous, walking across the park (disabled access via free buggy service) to the outdoor bar and then finally into the big top itself which is really big, perhaps a little too big for this production but impressive none the less. This is quite a small, intimate production concentrating more on the relationships than the circus skills but it still excites and entertains and Christopher Fitzgeralkd as Barnum is extremely engaging. Talking to ther audience members after the show it was not everyone's cup of tea, but I for one loved it, a great night out ....