Malory Towers – Leeds Playhouse

Writer: Enid Blyton

Music: Ian Ross

Adapter and Director: Emma Rice

Take Enid Blyton’s much-loved series of boarding school novels (written between 1946 and 1951) that have been passed between mothers and daughters for nearly eighty years – add a generous helping of live music, physical theatre, puppetry and comedy and somehow the result feels both entirely faithful and happily new.

Blyton’s books were themselves rooted in real life. Her elder daughter Gillian attended Benenden School, which had relocated during the Second World War to a hotel on the Cornish coast. It’s that cliff-top, castle-like setting that gave rise to the fictional Malory Towers, perched dramatically above the sea with its four round towers and rock pools filled by the tide. The six original novels follow twelve-year-old Darrell Rivers through her school years, navigating friendships, rivalries and the slow, sometimes painful business of growing up. Blyton’s genius was in making the whole thing feel like the most exciting possible version of girlhood – all midnight feasts, thunderstorms and passionate loyalties. Generations of readers have never quite forgotten their influence on their childhood.

Emma Rice’s stage adaptation (originally premiering back in 2019/2020 and returning now with a fresh cast for 2026) distils the essence of those books into a riotous, warm-hearted evening that works on several levels at once. On the surface it’s the story of Darrell Rivers (a fire-tempered new girl played beautifully by Robyn Sinclair), her slow-burn friendship with the steady Sally Hope (Bethany Wooding), her encounters with timid Mary-Lou (Eden Barrie) and the seemingly monumentally awful Gwendoline Lacey (Anna Soden). The narrative generally clips along at a pace that keeps younger audience members interested while giving adults plenty to enjoy in the margins.

What lifts this well above a simple nostalgia trip is the clarity of Rice’s theatrical choices. The decision to keep the musicians on stage, fully in character as part of the school ensemble, works very well, and Ian Ross’ compositions are genuinely lovely, with the a cappella moments carrying real emotional weight. The absence of adult characters from the action is a clever choice too, keeping the focus squarely on the girls and the world they create for themselves – though the unmistakeable tones of Dame Sheila Hancock make for an excellent Ms Grayling who is seen only as an imposing, no-nonsense silhouette.

The cast more than lives up to Rice’s billing of them as “fresh, fierce and joyful”. Gwendoline gets a rich portrayal from Soden that somehow manages to be comprehensively horrible while also hinting at the damage underneath – no mean feat. Mary-Lou’s arc from trembling anxiety to tentative courage is handled by Barrie with a lightness that avoids sentimentality, and the mischief-making side of school life; the pranks, the midnight feasts, the ‘getting sent to Coventry’ are well led by Molly Cheesley as Alicia Johns. Zoe West played a fascinating Bill (Wilhelmina) Robinson, thoughtful and strong, giving a real energy to the production.

The production’s technical elements are equally assured. Lighting and video design keep scene transitions fleet and unobtrusive, and one standout piece of puppet work, and a second with extra limbs provide two of the evening’s best laughs.

By the final scenes, what lingers isn’t just fond nostalgia for fictional dormitories but something unexpectedly moving: the memory of intense youthful friendships, the relief of being understood, the gradual, effortful process of becoming oneself. That this production can deliver all of that alongside laughs and brilliant live music is quite the achievement.

Spirited, inventive and genuinely joyful — Blyton, one suspects, would have given it top marks.

Runs until 30th May 2026 then continues on tour