REVIEW: PINOCCHIO AT THE GLOBE

AG
10 minutes ago
3 min read

This Beautiful Family Musical Pulls Our Heart Strings

The Globe pulls our heart strings with this moving and funny musical about the world’s most loved wooden puppet.

There is no more perfect setting for this timeless classic than The Globe’s beautiful wooden ‘O’, itself lovingly carved from a thousand oak trees to bring stories and magic to life, beneath a vast blanket of stars.

Here we meet outcast Geppetto (Nick Holder) - his thick Black Country accent comically highlighting his difference from the pretentious Italians in his village, and his yearning to be accepted and successful, through a series of ill-received inventions, from an Espresso machine to pizza.

This all changes when he discovers an enchanted piece of wood, and the theatre magic begins with the creation of this wonderful wooden boy.

The puppetry is extraordinary, with the impossibly lifelike and adorable Pinocchio (Lee Braithwaite), leaping to cuddle Geppetto, swimming to the whale and touching the cheeks of mesmerised children gathered around the stage, with his little wooden hands.

There’s fabulously dark drama in the Toyland scene, when the sinister coachman (Steven Webb) emerges from the trap door in red top hat and tails, surrounded by smoke to lure the children and their giant lollipops to Toyland.

The scene quickly changes from saccharine to just the right side of twisted for a family show, when he flings off his garish costume to reveal the monster beneath, brandishing a whip. Chillingly, the children and Pinocchio appear with donkey heads and are caged until they successfully battle the bully.

Charlie Josephine and Jim Fortune’s brilliant new musical is closer to Carlo Collodi’s original novel than the Disney version. We see both Pinocchio and his father Geppetto grow - one from a curious and naive (rather than naughty) child, and the other from a man trying to fill a void with money and success, before eventually discovering the perfect, wooden peg for his existential hole.

My daughter and I are excited to see the queen of comedy villains, Kerry Frampton in the show, who we adored in Rough Magic earlier this year. Among a gaggle of parts, she plays a fabulously daft and evil Fox and a comically slow Snail Maid, who delivers each cup of tea like Julie Walters serving Two Soups.

Giacomo Cricket is played as a wonderfully camp, health and safety chief, who ends up on crutches after falling down the trap door.

There’s a brilliant, fourth-wall smashing set from puppet master Franzini (Ed Gaughan) mocking the middle class families in the audience and the history of the theatre (which was rebuilt in 1997) with jokes about the Pret around the corner being older than this place.

Other stand-out moments include the depressed Blue Fairy (Lucy McCormick), who floats onto the stage on a sparkling crescent moon to belt out a Bluesy number; or the enormous whale puppet, which takes over the stage as it swallows Pinocchio.

In the whale’s belly, Pinocchio is finally reunited with his maker, Geppetto - there’s a Mexican wave of eye dabs and sniffs around the theatre, when Pinocchio finally calls him “Papa” and leaps into his arms, gently resting his head on his maker’s shoulder.

The heart-melting transformation of Geppetto is complete - from childless loner, too scared to love; to loving father of this extraordinary wooden child.

So the moment when Pinocchio fights off the whale to save his Papa, and Geppetto wakes to see a limp body washed up on the shore, is devastating.

Fresh hankies are required when Pinocchio wakes - no longer a puppet, but a real boy, played brilliantly by Ethan Bruce-Konauh/Asa Jones.

It’s a beautiful, creative and deeply moving celebration of the joys and frailties of being human, which will stay with children and grown-ups long after the curtains have dropped.

The Globe, 21 New Globe Walk, London SE1 9DT. Until 4 January 2026. Tickets £5 - £75