Around the World in 80 Days – St Paul’s Church Covent Garden

Around the World in 80 Days is a new production inspired by Jules Verne’s classic tale. This summer, it is being performed at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, with the grounds outside the church transformed into a secret open-air theatre tucked away between the surrounding buildings. With benches for seating, bunting decorating the space and fairy lights glistening along the path, it is a beautiful setting for an evening performance. The rustic wooden stage and outdoor atmosphere help transport you to another time period and make the setting feel particularly charming.

The production itself, however, felt somewhat too ambitious for the space and format. With a small cast playing multiple characters, constantly switching between roles, breaking the fourth wall and occasionally stepping out of character to interact with the audience, there was a lot happening on stage. At times, this made the performance feel quite erratic and chaotic. That said, the chaos also became part of the charm, with the audience laughing at the rapid character changes, the jokes and the actors’ interactions with individual audience members. It certainly created a lively and immersive atmosphere.

The cast is split into two sets, meaning there are two different variations of the production to see. I saw Tom Crabtree, Tali Nishihara Jones, Lucy Little and Felix Gillingwater take to the stage for this rendition. Felix Gillingwater was particularly exceptional, with fantastic comedic timing and quick wit. He brought an incredible amount of energy to the performance as he raced around the stage and through the audience, with sweat literally streaming from his head in the summer heat, much to the audience’s amusement.

Overall, this was a fun and entertaining performance, with a strong cast and a wonderfully atmospheric setting. The rustic stage worked perfectly for a period adventure, but the adaptation itself felt like it was trying to do too much. Attempting to depict multiple countries and locations without significant changes to the set, relying on flags and ribbons to indicate new destinations, while having the actors constantly switch characters and use puppets to introduce even more, sometimes became confusing.

There is plenty of charm here, and the cast clearly throw themselves into the madness of the production, but I couldn’t help feeling that Around the World in 80 Days could have been so much better with a slightly more focused adaptation.

Around the World in 80 Days runs until 30^th August 2026 at St Paul’s Church Covent Garden with tickets available at Home | Actors Church – St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden

Reviewer: Zain Russell

Reviewed: 13th August 2025

North West End UK Rating: