Malory Towers
Cambridge Arts Theatre
June 24, 2026
Enid Blyton’s 1940s boarding school classic comes tumbling out the closet for a joyful pillow fight celebrating, friendship, individuality and chosen family. Emma Rice’s company, famed for its inaugural production Wise Children, returns, fusing music and storytelling with humour and heart.
A thoughtful framing device takes us back in time, to a school before smartphones, social media and swearing: Malory Towers, whose mission is to develop “good, sound women the world can lean on”. We meet the girls, Harry Potter-esque, on the train to boarding school. A flurry of OTT formal introductions and vibrant characterisations from the consistently capable ensemble quickly establishes the period and our protagonists.
Joker Alicia (Molly Cheesley) keeps the girls laughing while sensible Sally (Bethany Wooding) gets everyone organised to perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We root for timid Mary-Lou (Eden Barrie, who perfectly captures the awkwardness of a teenage body); then hot-tempered Darrell (Robyn Sinclair) when a misunderstanding lands her in Coventry. Anna Soden manages to be both hilarious and heinous as the spiteful Gwendoline.
Stephanie Hockley, as Irene and musical director, provides some of the evening’s most exquisite vocals, her singing often floating above the ensemble with an ethereal quality.
The mysterious Wilhelmina – “Bill” – makes a fabulous delayed entrance on an animated horse… as far as such things are possible. This definitely puts the jolly in ‘jolly hockey sticks’. Wearing breeches and cropped hair, non-binary actor Zoe West lends Bill a welcome update from the “tomboy” label of yore. Their relationship with beloved horse Thunder is just lovely – explored a beautiful and affecting musical number, courtesy of composer Ian Ross. With delicious harmonies, the ensemble support Bill as they sing of a companion “without judgement, only care”. Friendship, forgiveness and chosen family become an extended metaphor in which a girl can be a boy, find home in a beloved animal, or simply refuse to fit into thoughtlessly labelled boxes. As the whole production intimates: girls can do anything – together.
Adaptor and director Rice builds careful bridges between Blyton’s post-war Britain and 2026; between Blyton’s blighted reputation and contemporary sensibilities; between childhood innocence and adult scepticism. The script preserves much of Blyton’s 1940s language and social world (“beastly” and “minx” among my favourites) while gently nudging the story toward more inclusive territory. The result is knowingly tongue-in-cheek, affectionate rather than revisionist.
Movement, humour, wonderfully entertaining puppetry and songs in diverse styles and sung with great gusto by the charismatic cast elevate this production beyond the sum of its original parts, and it’s huge fun.
Fun is the operative word: In this gloriously self-contained world, there is not a real-life teacher in sight. The girls study, swim, dance, stage plays, weather storms (literal and figurative) and learn about themselves along the way. It’s so simple and hearty. The production leans into that fantasy wholeheartedly: a world run by children, where every crisis can be resolved through courage, friendship and a well-timed life lesson.
Visually, the show is a delight. The set combines old-school theatrical ingenuity with technology, creating a storybook world that feels constantly in motion. Animated projections extend the action beyond the stage, from a speeding train journey to a perilous cliff edge and Bill’s beloved Thunder. Puppetry adds further layers of invention and wonderful humour, while lighting and sound transform the simple, adaptable staging into storms, midnight adventures and a climactic moment of peril. A beautifully executed slow-motion confrontation between Gwendoline and Mary-Lou, unfolding through song against a backdrop of gathering danger, is one of several sequences where the production’s technical elements and choreography work movingly together.
The characters remain largely defined by a single dominant trait that must be overcome and nobody escapes a hearty moral lesson. Sally learns not to judge too quickly; Mary-Lou learns bravery; Darrell learns self-control. The girls are remarkably self-aware, each able to summarise their emotional journey in a pithy sentence before elaborating in song.
Yet there is something oddly refreshing about that simplicity. Modern audiences may instinctively meet declarations such as “We can do anything if we work as a team” with a raised eyebrow. The world has become more complicated than Malory Towers allows. But Rice’s production understands this. Its nostalgia is never entirely sincere; it knows exactly how quaint its worldview appears. The affection comes not from pretending the past was perfect, but from recognising the enduring appeal of a world where friendship problems can be solved, bullies can be redeemed and people can learn to be themselves.
Robyn Sinclair finds exactly the right balance in Darrell, while Anna Soden gives Gwendoline enough vulnerability beneath the cruelty to make her eventual reckoning genuinely moving.
Whether the show is for children discovering Malory Towers for the first time or adults returning to cherished memories hardly matters. Like the books themselves, it occupies a curious space between generations. The story is charmingly uncomplicated, its message of friendship and forgiveness worn proudly on its sleeve. In turbulent times, there is something comforting about spending a few hours in a world where people fall out, make up, and discover that they belong.
At the Arts Theatre Cambridge all week.
