Brighton Year-Round 2026

Waitress

Barry and Fran Weissler, David Ian for Crossroads Live UK

Genre: Adaptation, American Theater, Comedic, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, Theatre

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

Bittersweet feelgood summer’s arrived early with vast Midwest skies. Last seen here in July 2022, Waitress – Jessie Nelson’s Book and Sara Bareilles’ music fitting over its uber-smart lyrics like slinky gloves – arrives at Theatre Royal Brighton; again directed by Diane Paulus till April 11. Based on Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film it seems timeless. It’s been restaged though by associate chorographer Abbey O’Brien and this now turns a fine musical into a near-flawless five-star event. Credit too must go to the new resident team, led by resident director Nikki Davies-Jones.

There’s grit in the memorable one-word refrain “Sugar” when the lights dim. And thanks to Shelly there’s heart in the show that this time really lands.

Feelgood yes, family show, maybe not. Either way, a must-see. And that’s partly down to the magnificent Carrie Hope Fletcher whose acting is both affecting and true. It makes you root for Jenna, the waitress of the title. Hope Fletcher’s singing is expressive, consummate, with a blast of soul.

Hope Fletcher’s unhappily married Jenna confides in her two fellow-waitresses: Sandra Marvin’s Becky and returnee Evelyn Hoskins’ kooky Dawn. Jenna’s pregnant. She doesn’t want a child now but she’ll keep it. That sums up her life. And she doesn’t love Mark Willshire’s abusive, possessive husband Earl any more. Willshire’s snarling and wheedling triumphs in a thoroughly unpleasant role.

On the plus side Jenna’s a superb cake and pie maker, valued by her colleagues, grumpily supportive boss Cal (Dan O’Brien, cut-through baritone) and the oldest diner Les Dennis’s Joe: dressed a bit like Colonel Sanders (Suttirat Anne Larlarb’s costumes make much of mid-west men and women’s bright party dresses vs uniform) he irritatingly always knows what Jenna’s been doing and feeling. And he notes, there’s this pie competition: 20,000 dollars.

That pregnancy changes things in more ways than one. Ellie Ruiz Rodriguez’s long-experienced Nurse Norma shrugs suspicion and more: when Dan Partridge’s smooth Connecticut-hailing Dr Pomatter, takes over from Jenna’s revered woman doctor. He’s interested in more than a tiny bump, and it’s not just the cake Jenna brings him, reminding of “It only takes a taste… a woman like you” his first affecting song. More like a lump in Jenna’s throat, and his. Second trimesters can be a sexy time. Just how sexy we discover by the consummation of the first half just after their punchy duet ‘Bad Idea’ showing Partridge’s tenor blends ardently with Hope Fletcher’s.

It’s a long but absorbing show (over two-and-a-half hours with interval) threatening clichés. Whilst not always avoiding them, Waitress manages to swerve expectations and puncture stereotypes in the second half. The end is real and earned.

So Becky’s big number after a surprise development “I didn’t plan it” which sounds like more pregnancies but isn’t, quite, both showcases Marvin’s searing vocality and establishes her outside the wiser older Black woman role which surely has had its century.

Again, Hoskins’ kooky Dawn is a superb coloratura soubrette, with a stratospheric tesssitura. Her characterisation’s so tight the sound almost obscures her words at first. But Hoskins has made this role her own over the years, the  role the tragically-murdered Shelly chose for herself in the film. Dawn’s soul-mate – Mark Anderson’s “amateur magician” and co-creator of Revolutionary re-enactments, Ogie – is a comedic delight of sheer slapstick: there’s a bit of Michael Crawford in him. And fantastical footwork. His ‘Never getting rid of me’ might seem a threat but their duet finally ‘I love you like a table’ says everything about them.

Anderson’s not alone. Partridge’s headlong slither down the examination couch when discovered in a bit of an unprofessional position is commedia del-arsie. The men in lower registers barrel through the sound design more easily; they’re notably clear too.

Midwest diner, big skies that change, diner windows giving on to vast reaches, a set design with yellow/blue chequered floor and spinning trolleys, seats and lighting sometimes turning into a dreary home with horrid green/yellow sofa or in a blink a surgery: Scott Pask’s set suggests a diner anywhere west anytime from the 1970s, but it’s probably now. It’s an evocative set: big dreams, small lives.

Things haven’t changed much, aspirations are pipedreams. Upstage left Francesca Warren and her superb, neatly-proportioned Waitress Band underscore this with Bareilles’ punchy, yearning sometimes memorable music; and orchestrations looked after by Nadia DiGiallonardo. They’re properly applauded.

I’m not sure how much UK sound designer Rob Bettle is responsible for the volume and clarity, or how much Elliot Williams, his UK associate is (this used to be Bettle’s role). It’s certainly improved though still needs adjusting, mainly for the first 20 minutes. It still slightly occludes the clarity of edgy lyrics, when there’s kooky accents; but this will settle over the week. Ken Billington’s lighting often beautifully pinpoints exquisite flashbacks – and they really do flash by. Again some credit must go to associate lighting designers Mitch Fenton and Dale Driscoll: it’s even finer than last time. Lorin Latarro’s choreography has been thoroughly rethought by Abbey O’Brien and is now superlative.

It’s a show where all ten named cast (except perhaps Rodriguez’s and Dennis’s mainly speaking part) get a solo or more. Willshire (strong high baritone) and Hope Fletcher’s marital duet is half-Nelsoned and angsty in its forced promises. Hope Fletcher, Marvin and Hoskins get two trios and several reprises: a delight of aspiration, solidarity and consolation: ‘Negative’ and ‘A soft place to land’ are attractive torch-songs of sisterhood.  ‘She Used to be Mine’ though is the torch-song we carry away with us, the one that’s truly memorable.

The cast are all hard-working, a terrific chorus, consummate and adroit: Yochabel Asante, Alice Croft, Jamie Doncaster, Daniel George-Wright, Emma Lucia, David Mairs-McKenzie. Swings: Will Arundell, Will Hardy, Hayley Hart, Olivia Lallo Dance Captain).

There’s several pairings and a steamy moment with three couples giving some relief to Jenna’s emotional, sexual and maternal odyssey. There’s schmalz too, some overly neat pay-offs when the story could have turned darker before the dawn. And that competition: there’s a jump-cut that makes little sense. But Joe springs surprises and the end’s as heartwarming as you could wish.

You can’t help but love this show; with its lives of quiet desperation given sudden chances, though with no neat ribbons. That’s saved for the cake. A bit of sound adjustment makes the whole world kin but this time the performances and direction transcend it, and that’s down to the new resident and associate directors. One or two small plot-points would help; just a line or two. With lyrics this good you wonder if Nelson’s book was over-edited. The pies aren’t though. Mine’s an 86% cocoa choc-ice.

But Hope Fletcher– particularly in her scorching ‘She Used to be Mine’ – raises us somewhere else: soaring music theatre, an ounce of gold in the throat and stars six inches above it. That’s where she takes us.

On-stage band: Francesca Warren (director), Debbi Clarke, Felix Strickland, Rob Jane, Nathan Finn, Siobhan Wilson.

Resident Director Nikki Davies-Jones, Music Supervisor and Arrangements Nadia DiGiallonardo, Orchestrations by Sara Bareilles and The Waitress Band, Orchestral Management Stephen Hill for Musicians UK Ltd.

Lighting Design Ken Billington, Sound Designer Rob Bettle, UK Music Supervisor Katherine Woolley, UK Associate Director Alex Summer-Hughes, UK Associate Choreographer Brenda Newhouse, Wigs &Make Up  Clara Lowe, Associate Lighting Designers Mitch Fenton, Dale Driscoll, UK Associate Sound Designer Elliot Williams

Casting David Grindrod CDG and Stephen Crockett CDG, for Grindrod Burton Associates, Production Management Simon Gooding and Matt Jones for SGPM Ltd, Advertising Dewynters, Press & PR Raw PR

CSM Mike Mansfield, Production Stage Manager Robert Laws, DSM Natalia Kheldouni, ASM Stephanie Frazer-Roberts, Beth Martin. Head of Wardrobe Bethan Price.

Published April 8, 2026 by Simon Jenner