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PATRICK MARMION reviews The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry at Minerva Theatre, Chichester: A tearjerking musical trek...go armed with Kleenex
Rachel Joyce's highly emotional 2012 best-seller which has now become a musical about Harold Fry and his unlikely pilgrimage to make up with an old friend dying in a hospice 500 miles away.
Starring big huggable Mark Addy as the teetotal brewing rep who's devastatingly bereft, it takes time to, shall we say, 'find its feet' and spends a heart-warming first half massaging its plausibility. With a rich seam of folk running through music and lyrics by Passenger (aka indie singer-songwriter Michael David Rosenberg), our hearts are stirred with barn dancing when Harold meets his wife (Jenna Russell) as a young man, but they're also broken as we learn the truth about their son (Jack Wolfe). And as his inevitably named errant girlfriend Maizy, Sophie McShera is a pleasing cross between Ariana Grande and Dolly Parton, who falls for a devious 'corn doctor' podiatrist (Matthew Seadon-Young) who, in turn, owes money to the mob.
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