Review: Little Women at the Liverpool Playhouse ****

Those Little Women have been on a big journey over the course of 2025 with this sprightly new production of the classic coming-of-age tale crisscrossing the UK.

But it’s apt the tour of a story which opens amid the brutal upheaval of the American Civil War should finish here in Liverpool, and in this week too.

While it officially ended six months earlier, the American Civil War finally concluded on November 6, 1865, when Captain James Waddell sailed up the Mersey in the CSS Shenandoah and formally surrendered to the mayor of the town which had done so much to support the Confederate cause.

Incidentally, 1865 was also the year the Liverpool Playhouse first opened as the Star Music Hall.

Louisa May Alcott’s semi-autobiographical story, effervescently adapted by Anne-Marie Casey, is concerned in part with war, and the pity of war, albeit as seen from the perspective of the women left behind to keep the home fires burning.

In the home of the genteel poor March family there are also other battles to be fought and victories to be won, certainly for unconventional, impulsive storyteller Jo, played by Natalie Dunne as a Catherine wheel of ideas and guileless enthusiasm at the heart of an often-frenetic household.  As a middle-aged woman, it’s exhausting at times just watching her.

There’s shared ground with Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in Alcott’s story of societal convention, class distinctions, female independence, personal ambition verses family duty and the bonds of sisterhood.

Above: The cast of Little Women. Top: Amy, Meg, Beth and Jo with Marmee (Juliet Aubrey). Photos by Nobby Clark.

Meg (Jade Oswald) is the beautiful eldest who is happy to follow women’s accepted pathway to marriage and motherhood – and to show a bit of mettle to achieve it, while Jewelle Hutchinson matches Dunne for verve and spirit as the spoilt and impulsive youngest Amy who, like Jo, matures over the course of the story, becoming a calm and mature young woman (unlike her flighty forbear Lydia Bennet).

Rather like Mary and Kitty in Austen’s classic, the gentle Beth (Megan Richards) is left to daughterly duty at home. Richards is a warm and engaging presence, and it would be nice to see more of Beth’s own personal story arc before she vanishes from the wider narrative.

Juliet Aubrey is a similarly calming presence as the March matriarch Marmee, attempting to instil a sense of selflessness and moral clarity in her offspring while supporting them in their individual ambitions, while Belinda Lang is a wonderful guilty pleasure as the acid-tongued but (well hidden) soft-centred Aunt March who represents the strict societal straightjacket - one she has managed to loosen a little for herself as a wealthy widow.

Above: Jo (Natalie Dunne) and Aunt March (Belinda Lang). Photo by Nobby Clark.

While remaining generally faithful to Alcott’s original, Casey keeps the male protagonists to just three – Perry Williams’ livewire Laurie – Jo’s ebullient youthful partner-in-crime, his sweet-natured tutor John Brooke and Professor Bhaer, the man of culture and high ideals who finally wins Jo’s heart, albeit on her own terms (both Brooke and Bhaer are played by Tom Richardson, whom you can also see in Beauty and the Beast at Chester this Christmas).

The action, deftly shaped by director Loveday Ingram, unfolds on an enchanting, almost fairytale set from Ruari Murchison which is dominated in the first half by two separate stands of trees, the narrow trunks acting as both a barrier and an aperture. After the interval, as Jo moves to New York, nature is replaced by two pillar-like wooden bookcases with the light coming not from the stars but from a myriad of illuminated tenement windows stretching skyward. Very effective.

The first half could do with a tighten – it stretched to a rangy hour and 20 minutes on opening night. Given the tour ends at the weekend I realise it’s a bit late for any meaningful remedial action at this point however.

But all in all, this is a lively and smart retelling of a story that has captivated many generations over the last 158 years and, if the make-up of the audience around me on opening night is anything to go by, continues to do so.