Paddington The Musical Reviews: What the Critics Say
Paddington The Musical began previews at the Savoy Theatre on 1 November 2025 and the press saw it on 30 November. No national newspaper went below four stars, and more of them went to five than to four.
The argument in the notices is about the second half, which several of them thought had too much in it, and about how broadly it plays once the villain arrives.
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The Critics' Verdict
Five stars from the Guardian, the Standard, the Independent, the Daily Mail, the i Paper and WhatsOnStage. Four from the Telegraph, the Times, the Financial Times, TimeOut and The Stage. Nobody went lower.
The specialist theatre press was warmer still, and it did not split. London Theatre, Musical Theatre Review, Theatre Weekly and All That Dazzles all went to five; the fours out there came from West End Wilma, City A.M. and Plays International. Musical Theatre Review's Lisa Martland reached for Matilda to explain it: "Not since Matilda the Musical had its West End opening back in 2011 has there been such a creatively successful… take on a children's classic." Theatre Weekly's Greg Stewart called it "the best new musical in years", All That Dazzles' Daz Gale "an instant classic", and London Theatre's Marianka Swain "pure theatre magic". The people who see everything liked it most.
It went into the Olivier Awards in April 2026 with eleven nominations, as many as any show that year, and won seven, more than anything else that night, including Best New Musical. Best Actor in a Musical went jointly to James Hameed and Arti Shah, the two performers who share the bear between them. It also took nine WhatsOnStage Awards and the Critics' Circle award for Best New Musical.
Read across, the notices describe the same evening. The bear works. Tom Pye's design works. Marmalade is the number people come out singing. Where they part company is over the score, the length, how broadly the second act plays, and whether this sits alongside Matilda and Mary Poppins or just below them.
What the Reviews Praised
The bear, first and by a distance. The Financial Times' Sarah Hemming wrote that he "instantly has the audience in the palm of his paw". The Standard's Tim Bano put him "up there with the War Horse puppets", a comparison other reviewers reached for independently. The i Paper's Fiona Mountford picked out the image the whole show is built on, "the little furry fellow sitting alone and forlorn on his suitcase at the station".
How he is made is the thing most people arrive wanting to know. Arti Shah is inside the costume; James Hameed sings the part from offstage and works Paddington's face by remote control. The FT called it "a brilliant combination". WhatsOnStage's Sarah Crompton wrote that "all this doesn't prepare you for just how magically that works". Musical Theatre Review's Lisa Martland wrote about what that takes: "So much care has been taken in the way both offstage performer and remote puppeteer James Hameed and onstage performer Arti Shah collaborate to bring Paddington to life, it takes your breath away." The Oliviers gave the two of them one Best Actor award between them, which is a fair description of what happens on stage.
Victoria Hamilton-Barritt's villain, and her song. The Telegraph's Dominic Cavendish called her "terrific, snarling, Cruella de Vil-like", and Pretty Little Dead Things is the number critics named alongside Marmalade. She won an Olivier for it.
The design uses the building rather than just the stage. The i Paper said Tom Pye "makes stunning use of the high ceiling and proscenium arch of the theatre by flooding them with a changing mosaic of images", and the Daily Mail's Patrick Marmion picked out "the glorious Natural History Museum set complete with dodo, stuffed giraffes and the butt-end of a brontosaurus skeleton". Pye won the Olivier for set design jointly with Ash J Woodward for video, and the video half winning tells you how much of this show happens above and around you. Seats tucked under an overhang get a slightly smaller version of it, which our Savoy Theatre guide goes into.
Then Marmalade. The FT called it "the highlight of the evening", "a bonkers cabaret-style paean to the bittersweet preserve", led by Tom Edden's Mr Curry, who won an Olivier of his own. The Standard asked, reasonably, "how can you not love a Busby Berkeley style fantasia about marmalade?" The Times noted that it opens the second act on a cheerful waltz tempo, which is a gentle way back in after the interval.
The Telegraph also caught a moment nobody else wrote up, "a show-stopper in which Bonnie Langford's wise old Mrs Bird turns theatrical trouper, does the splits and brings the house down". All of the performances above are the company that opened in November 2025, and on a run booking into 2028 the cast on your night may not be that cast.
Where Reviews Were Mixed
The second half. Critics on both sides of the star line said there is too much in it, which makes it the reservation that recurs most. The Times called it "an effervescent, if slightly overlong production" and went as far as naming the cut it would make: "we probably don't need the Geographer's Guild number." The Telegraph found it "a little over-stuffed with songs". WhatsOnStage, at five stars, allowed that "there's perhaps at least one song too many in the second half". Even the Guardian's five-star notice said "the final few scenes feel extraneous and it is slightly over-long".
The length is a booking question more than a critical one. The running time is 2 hours 45 minutes including one interval, so a 7pm performance has you out around 9:45pm and a 2pm matinee finishes around 4:45pm. The stretch the critics found long sits after the interval, which is also the point at which a small child has been in a seat for well over an hour and a half. If you are bringing a six-year-old, the matinee is the easier booking.
Then the tone, and two outlets arrived at it separately. The Stage described the villain's arrival as "a screeching handbrake tone change" where "suddenly, we're almost in pantoland". West End Wilma, at four stars, put it as "a few moments feel slightly panto or overly silly", and "Act 2 slips into pantomime territory". Nobody says it spoils the show and both still recommended it, but if you are booking on the strength of the film, the second act is louder and broader than the first, and it is the same stretch the content warning covers.
The score. The FT put the split most clearly: the songs are "generally jaunty and accessible, but only a few are likely to follow you home". The Telegraph thought Tom Fletcher's music and lyrics "may not be game-changing". The Times heard the opposite, praising "nimbly crafted songs" with "sleek harmonies that wouldn't be out of place on an early Queen anthem", and picked out One of Us for bringing the first act to "a thunderous conclusion". Where they converge is on the two ballads, One of Us and The Explorer and the Bear, the second of which the Telegraph credited with "just the right tingle-factor". City A.M.'s Adam Bloodworth, also at four stars, is the plainest about what he got: "a wholesome homage. Just nice songs, a decent ensemble and sharp, decently funny writing."
And whether it belongs with the classics. The Telegraph asked the question outright: "Is this a new classic on a par with Mary Poppins or Matilda? No, it's a touch threadbare." The Guardian's Arifa Akbar had gone the other way, writing "this is the new Mary Poppins", and the Times reckoned it "will surely give Matilda a run for its money".
Is Paddington The Musical Right for You?
Book it for the bear. It is the one thing every reviewer agreed on, it is what the Olivier for Best Actor was given for, and it lands on adults about as hard as it lands on children.
Book it if you have children of roughly six and up. The guidance is 6+, under-3s are not admitted at all, and the reviews describe an evening pitched squarely at families rather than at small children specifically.
Look at the peril properly before you book for anyone younger. The producer lists themes of "loneliness, homesickness, peril, and threat of violence to animals", which in plain terms means a villain who is a taxidermist and intends to stuff the bear. The Telegraph's critic, having sat through it, found "the jeopardy here is mild". Both of those are true and a parent deciding is better off with both. There are also strobe-like effects to simulate lightning, loud noises, pyrotechnics, and smoke and haze. A Light Map and a Sonic Story, setting out the lighting and sound changes through the production, can be requested from the Savoy Box Office, which very few shows offer.
Think twice if 2 hours 45 minutes is longer than your child will sit still. That is the reservation the critics kept returning to, and it falls hardest on the youngest ticket in the party.
Think twice if you go to musicals for songs you will still be humming on the train home. The critics genuinely split on the score, and nothing in the reviews settles it either way.
If you are weighing it up, call us on 020 7193 9050 and we will talk it through.
Book Paddington The Musical Tickets
Most seats are around £60 to £110, with the premium end of the ladder well above that. Book far enough ahead and the cheapest seats start at around £25. All-in pricing, so the price you see is what you pay.
It is booking to 13 February 2028 and it sells out months in advance, so the further out you look the more choice there is and the less you pay. Inside about six weeks there is very little left.
The schedule, the cast, the seats and everything else practical sit on our Paddington The Musical tickets page, and the building itself is covered in our Savoy Theatre guide.
Find tickets • Call us on 020 7193 9050
Sources
The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Standard, The Financial Times, The Daily Mail, The i Paper, TimeOut, The Stage, WhatsOnStage, London Theatre, Musical Theatre Review, Theatre Weekly, All That Dazzles, West End Wilma, City A.M., Plays International.