Into the Mythical, Magical Woods
“If the end is right, It justifies the bean”
Baker’s Wife
I had missed the opening of Into the Woods in December so was pleased to be asked to the cast change night in April for the last six weeks of the run. Rachel Tucker, a top musical star has taken over as the childless Baker’s wife and her husband the Baker is played Hughie O’Donnell. Their lack of a child is a result of the Witch’s curse and the witch Melanie La Barrie has left Hadestown for the role of the Witch.
The first act centres on the baker family predicament as the Witch asks for a hooded cloak as red as blood, a cow as white as milk, hair as yellow as corn and a golden slipper (note not glass). In return the witch offers to lift the curse. You will recall the requested items as figuring in various Fairy Tales, the hair belongs to Rapunzel who here is the adopted daughter of the Witch who was stolen from the previous generation of the Baker’s family and is the twin sister of the Baker. The slipper is Cinderella’s and the cow belongs to Jack (Jo Foster) of Beanstalk fame.
Another star of this show is Tom Scutt’s magically arboreal set, a dreamscape of leafy trees and ferns and moss, truly a woodland wonderland. There are flying birds we can see and we hear birdsong in the trees. After destruction by the giant we find the highly realistic severed trunks of ancient trees. Scutt’s costumes too have this mythic feeling, Cinderella’s ball gown of gauzy, grey ribboned and faintly sparkling net is a visual treat. So once you have been blown away by the design, what else is there?
The standard of singing is peerless and Sondheim’s witty lyrics are not lost on us. The music in Into the Woods I thought was easier than much of Sondheim when I saw this musical directed by Terry Gilliam at the Theatre Royal in Bath in 2022, bit it still has those discordant leaps which must be difficult to perfect. Rachel Tucker, Melanie La Barrie and as Cinderella (Chumisa Dorndord-May) all sing memorably. The narrator, John Owen Jones I remember as Jean Valjean.
The Princes are figures of fun and Cinderella’s Prince Oliver Saville doubles as Red Riding Hood’s seductive Wolf. He is overtly sexual and self-obsessed as the Prince which made me think that Cinderella might have been better off with her step family, who have a gruesome Grimm ending. He of course delivers the famous line, “I was brought up to be Charming not Sincere.” Together these princes cavort in a highly camp duet of “Agony”.
The Ugly Sisters (Hana Ichijo and Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson)’s toes are chopped off by their mother to try to get the golden slipper to fit and their eyes are pecked out by birds. The design of the puppets is cute; I loved Milky White the Cow and the fluffy calf. Rapunzel’s hairdresser has solved the problem of how to climb up her hair with braids formed into a rope ladder.
The first act is pretty similar to the traditional tales but the second act is altogether darker and seated in reality not happy endings. Because the first act is very long when the show was on a pre-Broadway run in San Diego, the audience, thinking the interval was the end, headed for the parking lot but were pursued by Stephen Sondheim shouting, “Come back!”
The lighting breaks through the branches of the woodland, radiating out in beams of starlight. You will jump out of your seat when the giant moves around above as the sound is worse than thunder, worse than an earthquake and my seat shook with the noise impact. This production is very different from the excellent one I saw in Bath but is equal in merit and worth five stars from Theatrevibe, the theatre site that doesn’t do stars
Musical Numbers
Act One
Opening: Into the Woods
Cinderella at the Grave
Hello, Little Girl
Little Red Ridinghood
I Guess This Is Goodbye
Maybe They’re Magic
Our Little World
I Know Things Now
A Very Nice Prince
First Midnight
Giants in the Sky
Agony
A Very Nice Prince (Reprise)
It Takes Two
Second Midnight
Stay With Me
On the Steps of the Palace
Act One Finale
Act Two
Act Two Opening
Agony (Reprise)
Witch’s Lament
Any Moment
Moments in the Woods
Your Fault
Last Midnight
No More
No One Is Alone
Act Two Finale
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Production Notes
Into the Woods
Book by James Lapine
Music and Lyrics by Stepen Sondheim
Directed by Jordan Fein
Cast
Starring:
Hughie O’Donnell
Jennifer Hepburn
Julie Jupp
Melanie La Barrie
Rachel Tucker
John Owen Jones
Oliver Savile
Rhys Whitfield
Valda Aviks
Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson
Hana Ichijo
Gracie McGonigal
Geoffrey Aymer
Chumisa Dornford-May
Bella Brown
Jo Foster
Creatives
Director: Jordan Fein
Designer: Tom Scutt
Movement Director: Jenny Ogilvie
Musical Supervisor and Director: Mark Aspinall
Lighting Designer: Aidan Malone
Sound Designer: Adam Fisher
Orchestrations: Jonathan Tunick
Information
Running Time: Two hours 35 minutes with an interval
Extended and Booking until 30th May 2026
Theatre:
The Bridge Theatre
3 Potters Fields Park
London, SE1 2SG
Phone: 0333 320 0051
Website: The Bridge Theatre
Rail/Tube: London Bridge
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Bridge Theatre
on 21st April 2026