In the same month that Something Rotten! delights audiences with its joyous Shakespearean irreverence at the Opera House, Manchester welcomes another long-awaited Broadway success whose journey across the Atlantic was delayed by the pandemic. Almost a decade after its Tony Award-winning run, Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking graphic memoir finally reaches the Royal Exchange, joining a growing wave of American musicals—including Dear Evan Hansen, Come From Away, Jagged Little Pill and next month’s London premiere of Kimberly Akimbo—that have reshaped the genre by favouring emotional realism over escapism.
Its arrival continues the Royal Exchange’s renewed commitment to musical theatre. After years in which the genre appeared only occasionally in the programme, 2026 has become a landmark year. Singin’ in the Rain reimagined a Golden Age classic with flair and invention; Fun Home embraces introspection, complexity and difficult subject matter, while A Little Night Music later this year promises Sondheim at his glorious best.
The Exchange’s intimate, in-the-round auditorium proves both an asset and a limitation. Alison’s story is told through three incarnations of herself—child, teenager and adult—as she attempts to understand both her own identity and her complicated relationship with her father. The audience’s proximity creates an almost confessional atmosphere, but the staging occasionally feels constrained by the very space that serves it so well. Bechdel’s memoir is built around the relationship between image and memory, yet that visual language is largely absent here. A more imaginative theatrical response to the graphic memoir’s comic-strip aesthetic could have reinforced Alison’s role as both artist and narrator. Instead, one of the source material’s defining qualities is diluted, making the otherwise elegant minimalism feel like a missed opportunity.
Bechdel’s memoir charts her coming of age alongside the slow unravelling of her family. Her father Bruce, a respected teacher and funeral director, lived as a closeted gay man in rural Pennsylvania, his carefully maintained façade ultimately ending in suicide shortly after Alison herself came out. Rather than reducing him to either victim or villain, the musical presents a painfully nuanced portrait of a man imprisoned by repression while exploring the damage inflicted upon those closest to him.
Those themes remain strikingly contemporary. Rather than simply telling a coming-out story, Fun Home examines inherited trauma, mental health and the destructive consequences of lives shaped by social expectation rather than personal truth. Few musicals confront such emotionally uncomfortable territory with this degree of honesty.
Sarah Frankcom’s direction wisely resists melodrama, trusting silences and small gestures to carry as much emotional weight as the music itself, while Peter Butler’s stripped-back design creates a fluid playing space that moves effortlessly between memory and the present.
Tesori’s intimate score rejects Broadway bombast in favour of character and narrative. “Come to the Fun Home” provides welcome flashes of dark humour, “Changing My Major” captures the exhilaration of forbidden first love, while “Ring of Keys” and the devastating “Telephone Wire” become the emotional high points of the evening.
The performances rarely put a foot wrong. Jodie McNee brings intelligence and emotional precision to Adult Alison, while Nigel Harman gives one of his finest stage performances as Bruce, even if the occasional vocal phrase lacks complete ease. Alice Audrey O’Hanlon impresses as Medium Alison, Alex Young brings quiet heartbreak to Helen, Natasha Cottriall provides warmth as Joan, and Lucca Chadwick-Patel effortlessly inhabits multiple supporting roles.
The evening’s standout performance belongs to Harriet O’Shea. Her Small Alison possesses remarkable confidence and emotional intelligence, while her rendition of “Ring of Keys” beautifully captures the bewildering clarity of a child recognising something fundamental about herself. Reuben Shepherd and Theo Wake complete an outstanding young company.
If the production has one lingering weakness, it lies in the musical itself. Having confronted repression and suicide with such honesty, the closing movement reaches for reconciliation, slightly softening the devastating permanence of Bruce’s death. One leaves moved rather than shaken.
Even so, Fun Home is an absorbing, intelligent and deeply humane musical that trusts its audience to engage with complexity rather than easy sentiment. In choosing empathy over spectacle, it proves that the quietest stories can often leave the deepest emotional scars.
Reviewer: Paul Wilcox
Reviewed: 9th July 2026
North West End UK Rating: