Little Women
★★★☆☆ Ambitious
Bedlam Theatre: Wed 22 – Sat 25 Oct 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
The EUTC’s Little Women, at the Bedlam until Saturday, is a carefully staged production featuring stand-out performances in the four title roles.
Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel, a loosely autobiographical story about the four March sisters and their mother’s existence in genteel poverty while their father is away as a chaplain in the Civil War, has enjoyed sustained popularity and affection. It has been adapted many times, with several different versions appearing on Edinburgh stages in recent years.
The March family: Sophie Davis (Meg), Elspeth Frith (Beth) Roni Kane (Marmee), Liv De Pury (Jo), Rachel McLaren (Amy) and Nina Birbeck (Hannah). Pic: EUTC
This adaptation, by Marisha Chamberlain, concentrates on the pivotal moments in the book (and its second volume, published in the UK as Good Wives). Suffice it to say that if there’s an episode in the story you remember, it’ll be in here.
Which is actually something of a drawback, as it ends up being a series of discrete scenes with little in the way of narrative flow. The result is somewhat disjointed, and tends to emphasise the melodrama and sentimentality of the original (two elements that are hardly in short supply to begin with). The ending, moreover, is crudely telescoped, leading to some decidedly unsatisfactory moments. There is, for example, a bizarre coda that ties up some loose ends that weren’t loose to begin with, including describing the fate of a character who doesn’t even appear in this version.
The performances go a very long way to overcoming the shortcomings of the adaptation, however, with the four March sisters all being portrayed very well indeed. Jo, a would-be writer who resents the narrow expectations placed on a contemporary woman, is played with real empathy and the utmost believability by Liv De Pury. Always the central character, Jo is given almost a narrator role at times here, and the remarkable quality of De Pury’s performance means that even the unnecessary epilogue is carried off with the maximum of credibility.
pitched just right
Rachel McLaren gives the youngest sibling Amy a self-centred air, at times petulant, that is pitched just right. Elspeth Frith plays the reserved Beth with great judgement. Beth has some scenes that would be natural to Victorians, but are very hard for modern audiences to stomach, and these are done about as well as could be imagined.
Sophie Davis also gives the oldest sister Meg a sympathy and believability. The relationship between the four sisters is beautifully done; you really believe they are related, and this gives the whole production a strong foundation.
The cast of the EUTC’s Little Women. Pic: EUTC.
There are some noteworthy performances elsewhere; Roni Kane as Marmee, the March sisters’ mother, is grounded, understated and very effective. Dylan Kaeuper gives the necessary playful affability to Laurie, the neighbour who becomes almost a surrogate brother while nursing a passion for Jo.
There are problems elsewhere in that some of the characters are desperately undeveloped in this version. Nina Birbeck does a sterling job of fleshing out the servant Hannah. Morven Hawthorne strives hard to give life to the stuck-up Aunt March but it is never clear why the character is in this adaptation at all.
Similarly, kindly neighbour (and Laurie’s grandfather) Mr Laurence does not really appear enough for Rufus Goodman to relax completely into the character. John Brooke, Laurie’s tutor who sets his cap at Meg, is also on stage too little for Theodore Casimir-Lambert to show us why Meg should be so keen on him in return. Hunter King’s Mr March only appears in one scene, and the conflating of events from the two volumes of the story at this point does the character few favours.
fluent but over-fussy
The direction of Meri Suonenlahti and Lauryn McGuire is intelligent and fluent, although at times it tends to the over-fussy. The stage design is very impressive, but the insistence on having such clearly defined exits and entrances for different parts of the house leads to delays. Having the cast walk in front of the stage so often is distracting, while the fire exit stage left at the Bedlam – as has been pointed out before – should not be used as an entrance.
Bringing the outside air into an already notoriously cold venue is never a good idea. You can just about get away with it on an unseasonably warm October night, but at other times it is disastrous, as well as introducing unnecessary outside noise. (On a further housekeeping note, the excellent notices at the venue should be altered from asking for phones to be on silent to requesting they be turned off altogether, judging from the ridiculously high number of lit screens popping up during the performance).
Zara Bathurst’s lighting design and tech management is once again impressive and just a little too ambitious. There are too many lengthy gaps between scenes which are covered by Finnegan Lamb’s musical direction.
All of these problems stem from an excess of invention rather than any lack of care, and never detract too much from a production which has many impressive elements.
Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes (including one interval)
Bedlam Theatre, 11B Bristo Place, EH1 1EZ
Wednesday 22 – Saturday 25 October 2025
Daily at 7.30 pm; Matinee Sat 2.30 pm
Tickets and details: Book here.
Little Women Instagram: @itsno.usej0
A scene from the EUTC’s production of Little Women. Pic: EUTC
ENDS
