Brighton Year-Round 2026

The Lion in Winter

Brighton Little Theatre

Genre: American Theater, Biographical Drama, classical, Comedic, Drama, Historical, LGBT, Theatre

Venue: Brighton Little Theatre

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

Succession, 1183 style. Perhaps the series I’ve never seen could still learn something from James Goldman’s 1966 The Lion in Winter, which in 1968 he wrote the screenplay for, winning an Oscar. Director Ella Turk-Thompson clearly thinks so, dressing the murderously dysfunctional Plantagenet family in suits and mobile phones. As you’d expect, she’s also music and sound director, adding a funky, almost bewildering feel whilst helming this epic two-hours-fifty production, with assistant director Mimi Goddard till January 31. A younger cast excels; two stalwart leads give the performances of their lives.

Leigh Ward’s Henry modulates and purrs, though Ward’s familiar roar is sculpted through the confines of a rounded personality with sharp edges, as Henry (and Peter O’Toole) were; and the space which still shudders as Ward bestrides Steven Adams’ set like a colossus whose own crumbling’s not quite shown. You believe he can face down anything.

Tess Gill’s Eleanor is different, less Katherine Hepburn, not so adamantine, more serpentine. Eleanor’s the wife Henry’s imprisoned for ten years for launching coups against him, their sons pawns, with the odd French king. They were once in love, and palpably at moments still are. One mistress in particular got in the way but she’s long dead and it’s Christmas: so Eleanor’s allowed out.

Gill starts scolding mildly like a delicious Prunella Scales chiding Basil Fawlty. That’s her playful side, plotting insurrection with favourite and eldest surviving son Richard (a smouldering and explosive Thomas Dee, last seen in The Crucible). In Act Two she becomes palpably more serious, explosive, tearful, tricksy, consoling and  bargaining on all sides as knives flash out: pity she brought them. But then as Gill points out, with delectable timing: “Well, every family has its ups and downs.” In Gill this Eleanor pushes Ward’s Henry to tenderness with a mix of genuine vulnerability and faux despair: which he smokes out. By the end of the play, these two – Gill in particular – have journeyed longer than the nearly three hours of this production.

Plotting and counterplotting dazzles and will have to be seen. Though fundamentally in love, Eleanor and Henry have been unfaithful (he has far more opportunity) and Eleanor can still top him in the humiliation stakes. But in all their Europe-wide fame, they’ve neglected their children. Young Henry’s already dead, a weak eldest who rebelled and died naturally. Richard, who here proves with the 17-year-old King Philip II of France (the excellent and suavely parrying Seb O’Driscoll-Henderson, last seen in Albert’s Bridge) that he sees no delight in bring hitched with beautiful Alais. Or any other woman.

O’Driscoll-Henderson is superb, knowingly drawing Dee’s Richard on. The sexual charge now seethes with the explicit and works dramatically. O’Driscoll-Henderson flexes his pecs like a Lamia, delighting in seduction.

Dee’s morose shrewd and courageous Richard is also less volatile than his youngest brother John. But his emotional damage – Eleanor kept him from Henry who had loved his eldest till he rebelled –  furious with the way Eleanor manipulated him. Dee’s presence haunts with a burred menacing voice.

The lighter-grained Geoffrey (Craig Hearn, who directed Albert’s Bridge and appeared in Jekyll & Hyde) is all bright policy and ruthless calculation. He’d be everyone’s chancellor. Neither parent loves him, for no particular reason. They accuse him, as do his brothers, of being a thing of wheels and clicks. Matching his parents in intelligence if not courage, he desperately builds bridges with those in favour who might advance him; Hearn like Dee is quite superb here, sweet reason veiling a sour Machiavel a few centuries early.

Jimmy Schofield as John (seen memorably in Queers and Bobby and Amy) once again triumphs as the petulant, weak and nascently psychopathic youngest son. Henry’s long decided on him for the throne, but concludes “I excuse his lies… his plotting” but there’s a limit. Schofield swerves and darts, all fright with nothing to back his quick, shallow stratagems. Even more than Geoffrey, he possesses none of his parents’ courage; let alone Richard’s (already called ironically Coeur-de Lion).

And Henry’s had it. After Eleanor tries inveigling her sons, and Henry plots to replace them all with a surprise gambit: “There’ll be princes swinging from the Christmas trees!” Goldman didn’t mind the odd anachronism, and this production pushes a couple more, though nothing disturbs the drama.

French Princess Alais (Katie Ford who appeared in Albert’s Bridge in Jekyll & Hyde), nurtured years ago by Eleanor, is poised to supplant her: Eleanor doesn’t see her as a threat, yet; and plots for her to marry Richard. All Alais wants is Henry. Anything else – like children – she knows would be snatched away. Ford moves suavely, sometimes passionately, initiating one of two passionate kisses, both with Henry, his other a surprise). Intimacy co-ordinator Elodie Foray makes it look steamy too. Though there’s a twist.

At one point Alais dances what seems an erotic whirl of triumph in her flowing robes. It’s striking, though I’m not sure Ford, truthful to her character, quite believes it. Her finest scenes come with defying O’Driscoll-Henderson’s prematurely commanding younger brother Philip (fine exchanges from both here); with Ward’s ever-shifting Henry where her distress rises, and most touchingly with Gill. Resting her head on Gill’s lap, Ford proves she wants family love and escape from court and continental politics.

Georgia Mills is striking as Eleanor’s mute Courtier in red, as are ASMs Rosalind Caldwell and Hannah Summer‘s Courtiers (who also makes on-stage announcements). With programme designer Holly Everett and Liam O’Reilly they do much lifting. It’s a pity the script gives them nothing to do.

Steven Adams’ set (and construction) is a marvel of reversible device. Deploying Tom and Allison Williams’ wondrous set-painting, there’s a fleur-de-lys cum William Morris interior, perfect to gesture to both periods and brick with racks of bottles in the second act. A relatively small table (for ease of movement) is overpowered with candles and feasting opportunities, though it’s just the wine that gets drunk. Small boudoir panels stage-left, a sofa or two, and that’s it. Scene-shifts are as seamless as they can be. I’ve said it before: Adams’ (and the Williams’) sets should be up for awards: and I’ve tried!

Christine Fox’s costumes are often sober, black save Gill’s multi-coloured gowns. And Henry’s 23-year-old mistress, Alais wears either slinky gowns or (oddly) sensible make-do-and-mend early 1950s counties mode at the end.

Beverley Grover’s lighting delivers tenebrous and atmospheric scenes. Sound design by consummate musician Turk-Thompson includes such standards as Blondie’s ‘I screwed up’ and the funkier end of torch anthems from the last 30 years or so. The truthful tone she conjures in her production though seems at odd with the music. Though transposed to now it doesn’t feel that way, not just because Gill declares “It’s 1183”, and Turk-Thompson tends to strip away contemporary adjuncts bar the brief early gesture of Henry’s mobile.

This is in the main a stupendous feat: two leads at the top of their game and three superb, beautifully detailed actors inhabiting the sons; with two fine supporting ones as siblings Philip and Alais. A triumphant must-see.

Published January 29, 2026January 29, 2026 by Simon Jenner