Mrs Doubtfire Musical Theatre Review

The newly introduced West End musical Mrs Doubtfire at The Shaftesbury Theatre is based on the 1993 film of the same name, directed by Chris Columbus.

The show follows the story of divorced father Daniel Hillard, played by Gabriel Vick, who goes to extreme lengths to spend time with his children following a loss of custody. He disguises himself as Mrs Doubtfire, a sweet Scottish old lady in order to get into his ex-wife’s house and spend time with his children. The casting directors smashed it when choosing Vick for the main role, bringing humour to the stage even from the pre-show announcement. His range of accents was a pure talent and there wasn’t a scene he didn’t make the audience laugh. I really liked the fact the audience could visibly see the transition from Daniel to Mrs Doubtfire, in the quick and smooth changes throughout the show!

It was an incredible show with a balance of hilarious comedy along with elements of emotive scenes particularly from the children in the song ‘What The Hell’ showing scenes of self-blame. The child actors portrayed their characters perfectly with Frankie Treadaway and Carla Dixon-Hernandez’s vocal range being very impressive. In her West End debut show Scarlett Davis was extremely confident.

The ensemble had an remarkable amount of quick costume changes, totalling to around 10, with each scene being high energy complimenting the songs which gripped the audience throughout.

Going into the show I was apprehensive how they would adapt the movie into a musical, I was extremely impressed and it was one of my favourite screen to stage shows I’ve seen. I would confidently give Mrs Doubtfire 4.5 stars. If it were purely based on the first half it would easily get 5 stars (I went into the interval blown away) but if I’m being super critical I’m knocking off the half a star as the second half just lacked something the first half had - though I can’t pinpoint what!

Overall, I would most definitely recommend this show to a fellow West End fan!

Access at The Shaftesbury Theatre

Located just a 15 minute walk from Charing Cross, The Shaftesbury Theatre has good access for wheelchair users. There’s a lift controlled by staff down to the stalls level where there is a bar to wait in, the path down to the seat is on a slope so I had to drive carefully when going down. We were located in the stalls in row U, I personally had a clear view of the stage but as the theatre is currently being renovated some seats are taller than others so my carer had a disrupted view however the staff did all they could to help her. The only inaccessible part is the shop as it is up stairs but the staff were adaptable and bought a list of items down for me to see.