Charing Cross Theatre Review 7th October 2026

Official description: Set in the twisted world of late 19th Century European Folklore, after action on the front line a platoon of young soldiers has been stationed in an isolated outpost for months awaiting further orders. Among them is Franz Woyzeck, a man haunted by nightmares since his return. He sees fire in the sky—hallucinations that blur the line between reality and trauma. Franz lives for two people: his girlfriend Marie, and their baby, Georgie. Forbidden from taking leave during the war, they haven’t been able to marry, but his devotion is absolute- he goes above and beyond to provide for Marie and his child.

There was a slight delay of around ten minutes before Franz & Marie began, but even while waiting the atmosphere was already building. The sound of waves lapping accompanied a stark stage of rocks, ropes and great stretches of dirty, mud-coloured canvas, somewhere between battered sails and military tents.

Then Vashti appears.

Played by Eve Polycarpou, she is our narrator and something of a mysterious soothsayer, leading us into this dark world with an opening song. Polycarpou is a phenomenal singer and nails the character from the outset, establishing the folk-tale quality that runs through the production.

Franz & Marie is based on Georg Büchner’s famously unfinished Woyzeck, the grim story of a soldier whose mental state deteriorates with devastating consequences. Here, though, that bleak tale is given considerable life by a terrific company of actor-musicians and a folk-rock score that becomes one of the production’s greatest strengths.

Brenock O’Connor plays Franz, and we watch him gradually unravel both mentally and physically as the story progresses. Sudden, explosive sounds can throw him, and us, back into traumatic memories of war. What we would now recognise as PTSD is at the heart of his decline, alongside his desperate circumstances and the medical experiments he undertakes to earn additional money to support Marie and their baby.

Those experiments, overseen by Doctor Simian, involve an increasingly disturbing regime of restricted food and electric shocks. It makes Franz’s deterioration particularly uncomfortable to watch because there is a sense that the people around him are observing what is happening rather than helping him.

Jade Oswald’s Marie is initially supportive of Franz while caring for their baby, but their relationship comes under increasing pressure. At a fair, the swaggering Drum Major Varg sets his sights on her, and when stories about Marie’s behaviour find their way back to Franz, his already fragile world begins to fracture further.

I’ll leave the story there. Those unfamiliar with Woyzeck are probably better off not knowing where it is heading.

Thankfully, Franz & Marie understands that such a relentlessly bleak story needs room to breathe. There are some wonderfully judged moments of comedy, particularly from Mark Meadows’ Captain Peccary, a slightly Colonel Blimp-like military figure whose eccentricity borders on the completely unhinged. His comic song with Richard Emerson Gould’s Doctor Simian provides some very welcome relief from the darkness surrounding Franz.

And then there is the music.

The actor-musicians are brilliant. Rather than disappearing into a conventional band, they remain visible on stage, moving naturally between playing their instruments and becoming part of the action. It gives the whole production a wonderfully organic quality, with the music feeling as though it belongs to this strange world rather than simply accompanying it.

The staging follows the same principle. Much of it is deceptively simple, with members of the company operating ropes to raise and lower sections of canvas, constantly reshaping the performance space. It’s the sort of device that could easily become distracting, but surprisingly it never does. Instead, it becomes part of the visual language of the production and proves remarkably effective.

Act Two begins before it has officially begun, with the actor-musicians already on stage as the audience returns. This leads into the fabulous The Pub on the Corner, with Matthew Heywood’s Drum Major Varg leading a number that received a particularly enthusiastic response from the audience.

From there, the second half gathers pace as the humour and musical exuberance gradually give way to the inevitable tragedy.

And judging by the audible gasps around me when that tragedy finally arrived, quite a few people in the audience didn’t know Woyzeck.

The subject matter won’t necessarily be easy for everyone. Franz’s psychological deterioration, the depiction of trauma and the sudden loud sounds used to propel us into his memories can be unsettling. But that discomfort is also fundamental to the story being told.

Without the comedy and music, this would be an extraordinarily bleak couple of hours. With them, Franz & Marie becomes something much more compelling. The excellent songs, imaginative staging and, above all, a superb company of singers, musicians and actors give energy and colour to a story determined to head somewhere very dark.

It may be a tragedy, but there is nothing dull about the journey there.

Disclosure: I received a press ticket for this