FringeReview UK 2026

Cable Street

Dylan Schlosberg, 10 to 4 Productions

Genre: Contemporary, Historical, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, Political, Theatre

Venue: Marylebone Theatre

Festival: FringeReview UK

Low Down

Review

“No passoran! They shall not pass.” There’s even a badge now. Such words are currently shouted in the streets of Minnesota, New York and elsewhere, and in London. As another person is shot dead by fascist-led thugs, there could hardly be a more timely – and devastating – revival of book-writer Alex Kanefsky’s and song-composer Tim Gilvin’s Cable Street. Yet again. Full of the swing and triumph of a cause, it arrives at Marylebone Theatre directed by Adam Lenson till February 28. If you can possibly see it this time, it’s a must.

Contemporary tour guide Steve, using the notes from a relative, answers one of his entourage: an American woman Oonagh whose mother lives in long-demolished tenements. History’s about to kiss or rhyme and both actors find themselves playing many parts in it; often sashaying back to now, with iPhone, Tandoori and Brick Lane references just as the tour party dissolves into Blackshirts.

Cable Street commemorates the moment on October 4 1936 when the Jewish East End, communists, Irish dockers and many ordinary people fought back against Mosley’s fascist Blackshirts and indeed the local police, who like the government instinctively sided with fascists.  First staged at Southwark in February 2024 – that great powerhouse of musicals including Operation Mincemeat –  by the time it was restaged at their larger Elephant space that September it had gone through a final draft. People after this show who’d not seen the second run, noticed. It’s less abrupt, the ending’s shifted. They liked it.

The songs are pretty memorable, and the torch song “No passoran!” rings in your ears. There’s small issues of clarity and balance, though this with various lighting and rapid set-changes (ably managed) will settle.

Though written in the aftermath of Brexit and the rise of far-right nationalism accelerated during Lockdown, Cable Street is a paean to community and unity; in the face of “downright racism.. and polarisation” as Kanefsky puts it. Since then its message has only become more alarmingly clear: nationalism kills or enables genocide. Including covid denial in Brazil and the US. Kanefsky explores tensions within the community and those who, like one character Ron Williams (Stranger Things Barney Wilkinson’s solos are plangent with hurt: ‘My Street’ and in the ‘Rooftop Sequence’) are drawn to fascism despite a fundamental decency. Kanefsky underscores redemption though.

We think of Cable Street as one battle (there were other anti-Blackshirts battles too; in Leeds). Some of us know there were two, and Cable Street delivers another message: solidarity in the face of rentier landlords. Many who’d sided with the Blackshirts found communists and Jewish neighbours were their friends.  It also explores tensions on the left: the Communist Party initially followed Stalin to the letter: focus on internationalism, Spain. That civil war had just erupted and the climax to Act One sees the triumph of lead Mairead Kenny (Lizzy-Rose Esin-Kelly, seen in The Lightning Thief) as she draws everyone irresistibly to the fascists to fight now.

Esin-Kelly, radiant with the ‘No Pasoran’ torch-song and elsewhere, is one half of the beating heart and connection of this show. Mairead’s a baker, communist and poet; and her premises are vulnerable. When boxer-in-training Sammy Scheinberg (Isaac Gryn, Stranger Things like Wilkinson) bursts in on her life, saving her from a Blackshirt, why should be grateful. Unlike her he’s though uncommitted. Naturally things change. Esin-Kelly and Gryn often flit through ensemble songs, though his ‘Sunrise’ is memorable. There’s an inevitable feel (especially since chairs are invoked) of ‘Empty Chairs and Empty Tables’ even the same feel; but the casualty list is less; and the right (or left) side wins.

Jez Unwin’s role-shifts dazzle. From father Yitzhak preaching Tolstoyan pacifism (many Russian Jews embodied Tolstoyan pacifism alongside Jewish endurance) as well as lowering Blackshirt Mick, and that latter-day tour-guide Steve with a V. As Yitzhak Unwin gets to sing ’Only Words’, the plea for peace that became the first song of the show to be written.  Unwin morphs through the most recognizably different role-changes, alongside the powerhouse that’s Debbie Chazen: who plays not only Mairead’s scolding and scoffing mother Kathleen (we discover why) but latter-day Oonagh who finds a connection with Steve; as well as a funky Police officer. And Rosa Scheinberg (Romona Lewis-Malley) comes most into her own in the aftermath of the riot itself, with anxieties over both sons. The fortunes of three families – Jewish, Irish, northern and displaced – tighten around shared precarity, threat and grievance.

Though playing meek Rabbi-preparing brother Moishe Scheinberg, Ethan Pascal Peters enjoys as local Communist Sol some of the sparkier comedic moments: particularly leading out the four sandwich boards (his naturally The Daily Worker, vs The Times, The Daily Mail and Jewish Chronicle (“Nachus since 1841”). It’s impossible not to hear an audible nod to the cheeky moments of Oliver! Though Gilvin doesn’t sound like him, one feels Lionel Bart would have applauded an idiom not so different to his, and full of matter. Indeed Kanefsky’s lyrics often wink so much you regret the occasional lack of clarity.

Apart from singing, Preeya Kalidas impresses as gin-soaked Edie Williams – Rob’s scolding and ultimately terrified mother reveals in ‘Happening again’ with her own backstory of loss. She and Kathleen Kenny in a variation of the same song have lost husbands to the war and Black and Tans. Both reveal levels of intensity like peeling back skins.

There’s good work from returning cast-member Aoife Mac Namara playing Mairead’s put-upon sister, Max Alexander-Taylor (another returnee) as their towering and implacable docker brother Sean, also on guitar; Natalie Elisha-Welsh as Sammy’s conflicted sister Rachel, with some searing truth-telling; and Michali Dantes and Annie Majin. Elizabeth Boyce on violin, Robyn Brown on bass and  Joel Mulley on Percussion add to the mix of contemporary with a hint of the 1930s.

Yoav Segal’s set scores with some wonderful c. 1930 flats down to brickwork flourishes upstage, with a jagged tenement horizon;’ and the deep set is given wings of doors and windows opening above it. Much though has to be summoned with a whirl of tables and chairs: a Friday Night dinner or the barricades. And a demi-horse as it were conjured out of Warhorse makes a spectacular entrance. Lu Herbert’s costumes heighten period drab with some bright primaries for the 2020s tour. Sam Waddington’s and Ben Jacobs’ lighting is often striking; Charlie Smith’s sound doesn’t overwhelm and the  choreography by Jevan Howard-Jones is fleet and undistracting, sometimes inspired. It’s hard not to think of Les Mis, but this was fact 50 years before that show. Art follows life.

I’m one of those who knew people who fought at Cable Street. Moss Rich (1910-2011) a poet and printer and his wife Millie (1916-2017) an activist met there. Their daughter is seeing it this Saturday. Another who saw it from a different perspective was Claude Lind (1917-2009), a young army officer. In company with one of the few police officers onside with the locals, and knowing actively helping them would get them cashiered, they directed the good people of Cable Street with their batons. “They went that way lads” Lind shouted, pointing to fleeing Blackshirts. “Thanks guv!” one returned. “All under control sir, I think” the Officer remarked to Lind. All three kept active to the end of their lives (Rich wrote and broadcast poetry on his 100^th birthday; Millie taught and painted; and Lind taught new IT skills to boys till three weeks before his death), and never forgot.

Kanefsy refuses to over-simplify but he doesn’t make it over-complex either. The triumph of class solidarity overcoming propagandised dog-whistles has never been more urgent. Reveals and postludes are both warming and elegiac. Inevitably some will find storytelling more congested than normal for a musical, and there are points when blocking needs looking to and clarity ring out more clearly; adjusting to a new space. Its very thew and history though is why it’s back for a third time. The multiple storyline’s clear, the truth overwhelming, and the backstories feel lived through. This is an event. Break in (without breakages!) if you have to, to see this. You’ll be standing in the aisles to swarm the barricades.

Associate Director Hetty Hodgson, Rehearsal Associate Ronnie Lee, Musical Supervision/Vocal Arrangements Tamara Saringer, Musical Director Dan Glover, Assistant Musical Director Bianca Fang, Costume Supervision and Maintenance Charlotte Murray, Associate Sound Designer Mike Woods. CSM Zoe Mackintosh, DSM Laura Jones-Berke, ASM Frankie Neville.

Production Manager Alex Firth at TPO, Producer Dylan Schlosberg, Associate Producer Neil Marcus.

Published January 27, 2026 by Simon Jenner