Image credit: Matthew Cooper.
★★★
With a concept and story co-created by Conrad Murray and Lara Taylor, Pied Piper is a modern and musical spin on the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Hamelin itself is reimagined as a town full of discontented young people waiting to see whether their current mayor will stay in power after he has banned music and kept them working in his pie factory for empty promises of a better future.
The show comes with a very talented cast. Alongside the titular Piper (played by creator Conrad Murray) there is the Mayor (David Bonnick Jr), his daughter Robin (Catriona Malbaski) and a group of kids known as the Rebel Clefs, made up of Aziza Brown, Celeste Denyer, Jevougn Greg-Fuller and Alex Hardie, with Alex Hackett understudying. They navigate the show and its soundtrack with impressive vocal prowess.
One area that it would be interesting to see developed further is the plot itself—while the show has a compact run of eighty minutes it could still be made tighter. Several songs about how dissatisfied the kids are with Hamelin and their jobs in the pie factory go by, without enlightening the audience very much as to what exactly they are so unhappy with, or what they want instead. Subplots, such as the mayor’s daughter Robin wanting to join the Rebel Clefs, suffer from a lack of buildup—as a result, some of the intended emotional climaxes of the story feel somewhat flat or difficult to follow.
The overall production is well-designed, with a large set made to resemble a factory floor that allows for a lot of dynamic movement and choreography. Also effective is the lighting, which along with the set has been designed by Ben Pacey. The Rebel Clefs’ costumes (designed by Erin Guan) resemble factory workers’ uniforms with a rebellious, paint-splattered spin. There are plenty of innovative practical effects used within the show, in particular the props used to show the ‘rats’ within the factory (the musical number in which these are mainly used is one of the most engaging of the show.)
Pied Piper also has community at its heart, inviting young guests from local schools to take part onstage. It is also full of plenty of audience participation, which is largely led by creator Connor Murray. All sounds within the show are created by human voices, rather than using backing tracks, and the audience are encouraged to contribute to this soundtrack at appropriate moments. This adds a pleasantly interactive element which will hopefully encourage young people in knowing that they can be a part of theatre-making.
Many aspects of the show are well-realised and carefully designed, and on the opening night of the tour it certainly seemed to engage young audiences. With its vocal work and production design proving to be complex and layered, it would be interesting to see an incarnation of Pied Piper in which the script and story reach the same heights as other elements.
Pied Piper is a co-production between Battersea Arts Centre, Beatbox Academy and rODIUM. It is produced by ARCADE with support from Derby Theatre, funded by Arts Council England. It is touring in February and March 2026, beginning at Derby Theatre and making its way to Peterborough, Medway, Leeds, Scarborough and Hull.
Words by Casey Langton
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