Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre

Last Updated on January 8, 2026

You’re in for a big surprise

5.0 out of 5.0 stars

Director Jordan Fein’s new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre is the first major London revival of the musical since 2016. Premiering on Broadway in 1987, Into the Woods was Sondheim and Lapine’s second collaboration after Sunday in the Park with George. From the narrator’s opening words, ‘Once upon a time’, we know we are heading into a land of fairytales. The musical conflates four stories by the Grimm brothers: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel, with the addition of a new and original tale, the story of a childless Baker and his Wife. Sondheim and Lapine create a dizzying narrative and musical web as characters, stories and melodies intertwine and shoot off in unexpected directions. This approach is encapsulated in the opening eponymous number Into the Woods, a tour de force of multiple storytelling that rivals Mozart and da Ponte’s ensemble pieces in its conception and execution.

The music and the book are similarly complex, with fiendishly amusing wordplay and Sondheim’s trademark convoluted melodic contours and harmonic leaps of faith. It’s no surprise that on Broadway, Into the Woods won Tonys for both Best Original Score and Best Book. The show is also replete with psychoanalytical symbolism taken from Freud, Jung and Bruno Bettelheim. Sondheim bore the scars of his parents’ divorce, finding refuge as a young person in the family of his mentor, the great lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, who “taught me virtually everything I know about songwriting and a great deal about life.” There is a strong sense in the show of ‘finding your own family’ with the finale song No One Is Alone supporting with this reading. Into the Woods is also very funny with lots of good jokes, wearing its depth lightly.

The first act sees the characters achieve their dreams, Cinderella gets her Prince, the baker and his wife have their baby, giving the end of Act 1 a sense of closure and finality. The second act, set in the mythical, mysterious woods, is much more disruptive and interesting, inverting the fairytale tropes with the characters stripped of their original motivations. A giantess has descended to the human world to seek revenge for the death of her husband at the hand of Jack of beanstalk fame. Some commentators believe the giant character refers to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, and the death and disruption that is brought to the world of Into the Woods has the concomitant effect of breaking the fairytale spell and transforming the characters into much more human, flawed archetypes. The fairytale is over.

Fein’s production allows the characterisations to do the heavy lifting. The first act unfolds around a simple, oblong baker’s oven. The second act places us in a verdant forest, dark and full of magical potential. The characters are dressed in stock medieval fairytale outfits. The princes bound around like excitable young puppies in doublet and hose with striped tights for comic effect. Cinderella transforms her outfit from a raggedy ensemble into a sparkling ball gown and slippers. The less socially exalted characters look like peasants who have stepped out of a Breughel painting. The giant is heard but not seen with thunderous footsteps shaking the foundations of the theatre and huge shadows looming over the stage.

This production has a strong ensemble cast, a mix of theatre veterans and Gen Z performers who have cut their teeth in the new generation of musicals that bring shoals of younger audiences into the West End. They all step up to the mark musically, managing the complexities of Sondheim’s rhythms and melodies with aplomb. Jamie Parker, an Olivier Award winner for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, portrays the Baker as a bluff everyman, struggling with basic childcare and reliant on his wife’s strength and drive. Strong-voiced, he movingly confronts the reality of being a single parent as his journey unfolds. His feisty wife is powerfully portrayed by Katie Brayben, who has just finished a run in Tammy Faye on Broadway. The two are well cast and make a convincing couple.

Olivier-nominated Kate Fleetwood is fabulous as the crone-like Witch, Rapunzel’s mum. Ghoulish in an outfit that looked like a Vivienne Westwood frock from the 1980s, but with a strong, emotive voice best showcased in the glorious waltz Last Midnight. The character emerges as a middle-aged glamazon at the end of Act 1, well-versed in the realpolitik of emotional transactions.

The role of Cinderella is taken by Olivier nominee Chumisa Dornford-May, who finds that being married to a prince isn’t a straightforward route to happiness. Who knew?! Dornford-May has the looks and purity of vocal tone to hoover up musical theatre heroine roles for a while yet. Bella Brown’s Rapunzel is a more ethereal proposition, a fantasy and fetishised object of desire who can only be reached by climbing up her tresses of long, blond hair, platted into the form of a ladder.

Jo Foster plays Jack, simultaneously brave, camp and trans with an unhealthy emotional attachment to his pet cow Milky White, in this production of Into the Woods a scene-stealing glove puppet. Foster was terrific in Gen Z musical Why Am I So Single? and is establishing a strong and distinct persona that will no doubt cross over to film and TV.

Gracie McGonigal makes for a rosy-cheeked and bumptious Little Red Riding Hood, dealing with the terrifying trauma she is subjected to by displaying a hard-nosed pragmatism.

Oliver Savile and Rhys Whitfield are the two entitled Princes. Their signature song Agony is hilarious as it is ridiculous, as they compete to see which of them is suffering the greater level of romantic anguish. Savile also doubles as a deliciously lascivious Wolf, seducing Little Red Riding Hood with the creepy Hello Little Girl before gobbling her up.

Musical director Mark Aspinall does a terrific job marshalling the band and controlling the dramatic and musical flow, and the sound, whilst amplified, has clarity and isn’t overpowering. If intelligent musical theatre is your bag, then get a ticket for this cross-generational show. Into the Woods subverts, delights and entertains in equal measures, reinforcing Sondheim’s position as the leader of the musical theatre pack.

Into the Woods

Wed 3 December 2025 – Sat 30 May 2026

Bridge Theatre
3 Potters Fields Park,
London SE1 2SG

Check our previews for more Southbank and Bankside theatre this season.