Review: From Hamilton and Come from Away to Jekyll and Hyde to Les Misérables - Beyond the Barricade can do anything

Having seem them on a number of occasions now even though you know how it’s going to end – you never know what musical theatre journey you are going to go on before you get to the incredible denouement that is One Day More.

Beyond the Barricade is the UK’s longest running Musical Theatre Concert Tour and features past principal performers from Les Misérables and whatever songs they perform – whether it be from Broadway or the West End – they are always at the top of their game.

The concert features David Fawcett (who was on hand with the dad jokes as per usual), Andy Reiss, Katie Leeming (sound better than ever) and Sarah Ryan and together with a live band they capture the feel of the original orchestrations of the chosen musicals.

Having not seen them since the pandemic, it was great to see them perform some songs for the for first time, especially Welcome to the Rock from Come From Away.

There was also more from Hamilton than we have seen before including the beautiful It’s Quiet Uptown and the brilliant You’ll Be Back – with Reiss changing his voice and even donning a crown in what was a funny and awesome performance. And it was nice to see a couple of songs from Back to the Future as well.

But it was not all new musicals – Reiss is always impressive when he does his solo numbers and seeing him perform This is the Moment from Jekyll and Hyde is always a delight – but this time was as good as he has ever sounded.

That was just the first half!

The second half kicked off with The Lion King, before Ryan sang two songs from Carousel including the iconic You’ll Never Walk Alone and we had the usual lighter moment with Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from Spamalot and some from Blood Brothers, which recently graced the Hawth stage. But arguably the standout song of the second act (before Les Mis obviously!) was Lily’s Eyes from, Reiss and Fawcett did a very good job of that number,

But for a lot of the audience, it doesn’t matter what comes before, it’s all about the ending and the Les Mis songs. And my word it is something to see. From David’s Bring Him Home, to Katie’s On My Own and Andy’s Stars, it is astonishing to see. And when they do One Day More, well, what more is there to be said? Just phenomenal.

Essentially it’s just four incredible singers, singing incredible songs, incredibly. A wonderful night of entertainment and shouldn’t be missed.

You can find out where Beyond the Barricade are performing next here.