Reviews of Here We Are at the National Theatre in London

"Sondheim's sensational swan song"

"The late composer bids farewell with a show made-to-order for now"

"You don't have to be greeting the modern day with a smile unsupported by events in the wider world to have a field day at Here We Are. The last musical from the venerated Stephen Sondheim has only grown in import and meaning since I caught its New York premiere some 18 months ago."

"... those willing to meet the show on its own wacky, wonderful terms are in for a treat, and not just because the National has fielded a lineup of talent that is extraordinary, even at that address."

"Sondheim’s last musical is utterly absorbing"

"Witty lyrics by the late composer and stand-out performances from Jane Krakowski and Rory Kinnear bring joy to this charming if wacky show"

"Let me be absolutely honest and say that this star rating should come with a health warning. Why? Because the valedictory offering from the late Stephen Sondheim is such a curate’s egg. The musical fantasy that unfolds on the National’s Lyttelton stage is, for long stretches, utterly absorbing. Yet it’s undeniably flawed, too."

"The first part of the evening is quite simply extraordinary, the typically angular melodies delivered with panache by a first-rate ensemble in which Jane Krakowski is always the centre of attention."

"This show reminds us that he can also be very, very funny."

"Denis O’Hare is superb in the various manifestations of a harassed member of staff (Waiter’s Song is delicious)"

"Revolutionaries, a bishop and a bear are also part of the spectacle. Don’t ask why. It’s better to let the fey tale wrap itself around you like some modern-day Midsummer Night’s Dream."

"Sondheim’s swansong is like meeting an old friend"

"First unveiled in New York in 2023, the musical-theatre titan’s last work is no masterpiece, but it still demands to be seen"

"It works on paper (the characters are mysteriously incapable of connecting with the outside world, so why wouldn’t music cease too?) and accords with the narrative’s hallucinogenic logic. It’s a tough proposition in practice, even so. But watching the UK premiere at the NT (with Mantello directing a mainly new cast) to me the tension the conceit creates – is this legit or a cheap, fraudulent fix? – makes this anti-climactic coda the perfect Sondheim epitaph."

"That possibly makes the evening sound heavy-going but, even if the chatter drags in the second half, it’s mainly light on its feet and served with visual flair and orchestral heft."

"Sure, it’s no masterpiece, but a minor-league swansong from a giant of musicals is still a major deal."

"Sondheim’s musical Here We Are is a bonkers, sometimes brilliant, final work"

"Staged at London’s National Theatre, the piece is superbly delivered by a terrific cast"

"So, here it is, and it’s hard to imagine it better done. Stephen Sondheim’s final musical, first produced posthumously in New York, arrives in London: a bonkers, bitty and sometimes brilliant coda to the great composer-lyricist’s work, superbly delivered by a terrific cast."

"As many have noted, it’s barely a musical — more a surreal drama in which music is part of the texture — and it certainly doesn’t match Sondheim’s masterpieces. But in Joe Mantello’s affectionately precise staging, even the work’s unfinished state makes sense."

"As political comment on the excesses of late-stage capitalism, it’s pretty blunt and the lack of action is problematic. But there’s an edge to Mantello’s staging that lifts it into something weird and existential."

"Sondheim’s final musical is mystifying and magical"

"As a last hurrah, Stephen Sondheim’s Here We Are is quite something. An acerbic, absurdist take on late-stage capitalism, he was still working on it when he died – suddenly – in 2021 at the age of 91. But it has been given a production at the National Theatre by his collaborator director Joe Mantello that serves it as crisply, smartly and stylishly as it deserves."

"... people worried that the music runs out early in the second part. Yet the switch from movement to stasis, from social satire to psychological soul-searching that the structure contains, means that the silence can be accepted as meant."

"There’s no avoiding the fact that in many ways the show is a mess. Yet scene by scene it just about works, thanks to Mantello’s inventive direction. What makes it magical are all the performances, each essentially taking a small part in an ensemble and making it rich."

"As the soldier and Fritz, Fleeshman and Dornford-May sing up a storm and make a lot out of very little; O’Hare and Bennett are just superb."

"Sondheim’s desperate diners have a double helping of Buñuel"

"This energetic look at the charmed lives of the 1% features some signature sparks, but the class satire is not potent enough in the composer’s swansong"

"Stephen Sondheim’s final musical is a passion project in more ways than one. An adaptation of two films by Luis Buñuel, it reflects his lifelong love of cinema."

"It is full of adventurous imagination, with some signature Sondheim sparks, but the trouble spots are still clear to see."

"Mantello’s production begins energetically with wryly satirical humour about the charmed lives of the 1%."

"... as the show travels from movement to stasis, with emphatic repetition that is as existential as it is literal, it falters in momentum and brings longueurs, despite urgent warnings about the end of the world. Musically, the sound is unmistakably Sondheim’s but there is no one great song, not even one memorable song. There is heartiness and humour but little of Sondheim’s usually intimate or penetrating psychology."

"Here We Are should leave you scratching your head but for all its interesting ideas on life and death, rich and poor, it melts away rather too quickly afterwards."

"Sondheim’s final musical is clearly unfinished, but still touched by genius, and performed by a ridiculously talented cast"

"Stephen Sondheim didn’t finish his final musical Here We Are, something we can easily determine by the fact there aren’t any songs in the second half. "

"If there aren’t necessarily any obvious all-timers, Sondheim’s lyrics are delightfully flip and spiky... it was presumably much harder for him to finish songs in his final years, but what he did finish feels startlingly fresh."

"Enormous credit must go to Ives. Not only did he have to finish the show on his own, but his transposition of Buñuel’s mid-century satires into a coherent contemporary America-set narrative works brilliantly – deft, funny and perceptive."

"It’s also important to stress that the cast is preposterously talented: Jane Krakowski is – within her comfort zone – one of the funniest actors alive today, and has a ball here as space cadet Marianne"

"Is it a great musical? Well not really, half of it’s missing and I’d say it ultimately feels a bit frothy – much fonder and more forgiving of its subjects than the source films were. But as the final unfinished work of a 91-year-old it’s pretty bloody spectacular."

"Here We Are is full of wit and flair, but Stephen Sondheim’s final musical feels incomplete"

"Familiar TV faces Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Jane Krakowski, and Rory Kinnear make up a formidable if unlikely cast"

"Tony Award-winning director Joe Mantello throws body, soul, and a huge amount of cash into making this oddity work – David Zinn’s astonishingly lavish set design magics up an array of rooms that ought to be preserved in the Met"

"It’s flip, funny, and undeniably stylish. But essentially unsatisfying, too."

"... Sondheim was tragically unable to finish the songs that would elevate this musical into the transcendental thing it could be. Instead, it’s a beautifully rendered curio for his fans, full of wit and dash – and a testament to his restless search for meaning in the most unexpected of places."

"Top-notch cast... but Sondheim's send-off is flimsy and forgettable"

"Full marks for effort. The National Theatre has really pushed the boat out for the last show by the late god of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim, who died in 2021. The posthumous production... stars Tony award-winner Jane Krakowski (30 Rock), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family) and leading British thesp Rory Kinnear in a top-notch cast of 17. But not even they, nor a stunningly inventive and lavishly executed stage design, can make this mongrel sing."

"The material is breathtakingly thin – as flimsy as its satirical targets."

"The result is fitful, burbling and totally forgettable.... Nothing sticks, and two-and-a-half hours proves a long haul without an engaging plot, characters we care about, memorable tunes, emotional depths, or pleasing lyrics (at one point ‘it’ is rhymed, audaciously, with... ‘it’)."

"Should this have been staged at all?"

"Stephen Sondheim’s posthumous musical has no songs, only a stellar cast save it from being completely unenjoyable"

"This posthumously realised work by the peerless American composer, lyricist and innovator Stephen Sondheim is a musical with no songs and, in the second half, hardly any music."

"... the show starts out playfully satirical and ends in grindingly repetitive, adolescent expressions of existential fear and societal collapse."

"A high-calibre cast including Jane Krakowski, Rory Kinnear, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Martha Plimpton give it their all as a group of unlovely, wealthy New Yorkers searching unrequitedly for brunch in the first half and trapped, starving, in an opulent embassy in the second. But is it worth it?"

"... Tracie Bennett and Denis O’Hare riffle hilariously through a series of OTT accents and emotions as the servers, confronting the privilege of the core group with absurdist resistance."

"The bigger question is whether the greatest force in musical theatre over seven decades would have wanted this as his creative epitaph. We’ll never know. So here we are."

"Strangulated swansong"

"Stephen Sondheim’s posthumous final musical is an aimless disappointment"

"There is an immediate, and fundamental, problem: not only are these shallow idiots – here a bunch of vacuous urbanites in search of a place to have brunch – too thinly drawn to feel properly human, but there’s not a single compelling or convincing relationship between them."

"... in a slick, soulless production by director Joe Mantello – as theatre, it makes pretty thin gruel, leaving us as hungry and dissatisfied as the show’s perpetually frustrated posse."

"It’s all pretty tedious, and although the score is immediately recognisable as Sondheim – that bouncy chromaticism, those rising modulations from major to minor – it’s not especially memorable. Still less arresting are the lyrics, given that there’s no reason for anyone to sing since nothing has any sense of urgency or intensity."

"Sondheim’s bittersweet swansong"

"Unfinished fusion of two Buñuel films is unmissable but loses itself as the music dies"

"The UK premiere of his last work is unmissable, fascinating and sometimes wan."

"Neurosis, obsession, savage disregard masquerading as elegant distraction: this is a ripe field for Sondheim. His needling rhythms and drilling repetitions, the lines that break off, suggestively hovering"

"Still, an edge is missing from Mantello’s production. Though smooth and forceful, it is not seductive."

"Appropriate perhaps, a tribute possibly – but it is hard to make the case for it as drama: Buñuel’s surreal roar turns into an agreeable meander through the mildly bizarre. Here We Are: not Sondheim’s best place but still pointing towards a new way of living for the musical. We’ll find a way of forgiving the rest."