Guys and Dolls – Festival Theatre

Southern Light’s Guys and Dolls arrives at the Festival Theatre with all the confidence and swagger of a Broadway classic that knows it has survived generations. Frank Loesser’s score still sparkles, Damon Runyon’s world of gamblers and hustlers still charms, and Southern Light throw absolutely everything they have at it. This is a huge production, packed with colour, movement and musical ambition, with a cast of around seventy determined to fill one of Scotland’s biggest auditoriums.

And for long stretches, they succeed.

Directed by Andy Johnston, with musical direction by Fraser Hume and choreography by Janice Bruce, the production understands that Guys and Dolls lives or dies on energy. The Festival Theatre stage is enormous and unforgiving, capable of swallowing lesser productions whole, but Southern Light keep it alive through sheer momentum. Neon lit Manhattan styling, bustling ensemble movement and a muscular orchestral sound all help create a version of Broadway that feels vibrant rather than museum like.

The principal cast are uniformly strong. Greg Caffery Johnson gives Sky Masterson a slightly understated confidence which works well, avoiding the temptation to overplay the role’s swagger. His performance has an easy charm, even if “Luck Be a Lady” never quite catches fire in the way the number perhaps demands. John Bruce is excellent as Nathan Detroit, leaning fully into the character’s comic desperation and emerging as one of the evening’s most consistently entertaining presences, a lovable buffoon forever scrambling to keep his chaotic world intact.

But the standout performer of the night is undoubtedly Lara Kidd as Miss Adelaide. With an immaculate New York drawl and razor sharp comic timing, she captures both the humour and melancholy of the role beautifully. Her rendition of “Adelaide’s Lament” is one of the evening’s genuine high points, funny, vulnerable and completely assured. It is a star performance.

The biggest showstopper, however, belongs to Fionn Cameron as Nicely Nicely Johnson. His second half performance of “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” lifts the production into another gear entirely, suddenly electrifying both audience and company alike. It is the kind of number that reminds you exactly why classic musicals have endured for so long.

There were personal echoes too. Several years ago I performed in Guys and Dolls myself with another company, playing Lieutenant Brannigan, so there was a particular pleasure in watching Pederic Hamrog’s sharply observed take on the role. At points I found myself almost unconsciously lip syncing Brannigan’s lines along with him, which perhaps says something about how deeply this show embeds itself into the memory of those who have performed it.

Yet for all its quality, Guys and Dolls also raises larger questions about the future of large scale amateur musical theatre. Watching this only a night after the Lyceum’s daring and contemporary musical Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil inevitably creates an awkward comparison. Where that production felt risky, modern and theatrically adventurous, Guys and Dolls feels trapped within the protective glass case of its own legacy. Southern Light perform it magnificently, but the material itself rarely surprises. Licensing restrictions mean these shows are preserved almost architecturally, carefully maintained rather than reinvented.

Indeed, there are moments where Southern Light seem to be straining against the limits of the material itself, a thoroughly modern and highly capable company performing inside a meticulously preserved mid-century Broadway time capsule.

Which perhaps points toward an intriguing future. Southern Light clearly possess the talent, musical discipline and production scale to do far more than simply revive established classics. One begins to wonder whether companies of this calibre might eventually look toward developing original work of their own, rather than competing for an increasingly narrow pool of ageing licensed musicals.

That question feels especially relevant when looking around a Festival Theatre auditorium that, despite the scale of the production and the loyalty of performers’ families and supporters, still appeared only partially filled. These productions are enormously demanding undertakings, artistically and financially, and one senses the economics of traditional amateur musical theatre becoming increasingly difficult in an entertainment landscape that has changed dramatically.

Still, whatever larger existential questions surround the genre, Southern Light deliver Guys and Dolls with enormous professionalism, warmth and affection. If the show itself now feels slightly old fashioned, the commitment behind this production most certainly does not

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 14^th May 2026

North West End UK Rating:

Running time – 2hr 45mins. (With interval)