The Pianist at Park Theatre Review

Getting to The Pianist at Park Theatre

Some of the best nights in London happen just beyond the bright lights of Sinatra The Musical or Oliver! in the West End. On a Friday evening I left my hotel near Green Park and dropped down to the Victoria line, joining the tail end of rush hour. Twenty minutes and a handful of stops later, I climbed out at Finsbury Park in north London. You can make the same trip on the Piccadilly line, which also runs straight from Green Park or the numerous buses that stop at Finsbury Park. My destination was The Pianist at Park Theatre, a world premiere run that followed a short try-out in Southampton.

A Theatre You Could Walk Right Past

I'll confess that I walked straight past the theatre the first time. It's tucked down a quiet lane a few minutes from the station. Its tall "PARK" sign and glowing show posters are easy to miss until you're right beside them. Step inside, though, and the place comes alive. There's a busy theatre café and bar serving drinks and pizza, with people milling about before curtain-up.

I took my drink up to the second level, where I could lean on the rail and watch the crowd gathering below. After a crush of trains and tubes, it was the perfect place to slow down and breathe.

The Story Behind The Pianist at Park Theatre

The Pianist is based on the best-selling memoir by Władysław Szpilman. The book also inspired Roman Polanski's Oscar-winning 2002 film. Szpilman was a celebrated Polish Jewish pianist and composer, a star of Polish Radio in 1930s Warsaw. Then the Nazis invaded. The play follows him as the Jewish community is walled into the Warsaw Ghetto, as his family is deported to a death camp, and as he survives alone in hiding among the ruins of the city.

Adapted and directed by Thom Southerland, this production is the first to bring Szpilman's story and his own music to the stage together. His compositions, newly arranged by Simon Lee, Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-time musical director, are woven through the whole evening. It's billed as a musical, but it plays more like a drama in which the music is a character of its own.

The Music of a Lost Warsaw

Before the war, Warsaw was one of Central Europe's most musical cities. Polish Radio filled the air with live performances, cabarets and dance halls were packed, and tango and jazz were all the rage. Warsaw also had the largest Jewish community in Europe, about a third of the city, and Jewish composers and performers were at the heart of its popular music.

Szpilman was one of its brightest stars. He was a classical concert pianist who also wrote hit songs and film music, which earned him the nickname "the Polish Gershwin". Chopin, Poland's national composer, runs through his story too. Szpilman was playing Chopin live on Polish Radio in September 1939 when German bombs knocked the station off the air. In his memoir, it is also Chopin that he plays for the German officer who finds him in hiding.

Seeing The Pianist at Park Theatre Up Close

After the grand, crowded houses of the West End, the main auditorium here was a welcome surprise. It holds just 200 people around a stage of roughly 40 feet square, with three rows of seats wrapping around it and about two more rows on the balcony above. There isn't a bad seat in the house, and you are genuinely up close to the actors.

All of the seating is padded benches rather than individual seats, but they give you a little more leg and hip room than a typical West End seat. I was on the end of a row, right by an entrance, so the actors brushed past me every few minutes on their way onto the stage. It made the story feel like it was happening all around me.

The Cast of The Pianist at Park Theatre

I'm no professional critic, but the cast of The Pianist at Park Theatre were brilliant. They conveyed real emotion and painted a vivid picture of what it meant to survive in occupied Warsaw. Because the theatre is so small, the dozen or so performers each wear several hats. They act, sing, speak several roles and play their instruments live on stage. It's a remarkable display of versatility.

At the centre is Daniel Krikler as Szpilman, who narrates his own story while living through it. He brings serious credentials, with West End roles in Mamma Mia! and Loserville, work at the National Theatre and the Old Vic, and the title role in the RSC's Wendy and Peter Pan. Beside him sits Malcolm Forbes-Peckham, a concert pianist and the show's musical director, who plays almost all of Szpilman's music while Krikler acts. His CV includes the West End run of An American in Paris and The King and I at the London Palladium. Among the supporting company, Nitai Levi and Rosalind Ford give especially moving performances as Szpilman's brother and mother.

How It Made Me Feel

As I've said before, I judge a play by how it makes me feel. No one enjoys hearing about the Holocaust, Nazi Germany and its atrocities. But The Pianist at Park Theatre reminded me that this is a story that must keep being told, so that it never happens again.

I felt deep sadness at the living hell the Jews of Warsaw endured, and above all for Szpilman himself. It was heartbreaking to know that his family went to their deaths when they were put on that train to the camp. Yet there was also relief, and a flicker of faith in humanity. His life was saved by people who took enormous risks to help him, including a German officer, Wilm Hosenfeld, who found him starving in the ruins and chose to keep him alive.

How did I feel afterwards? It's hard to put into words. I felt fortunate to have seen such a moving performance, and I found some solace in that glimmer of hope for humanity.

From Empty Office Block to Award-Winning Stage

Before seeing The Pianist at Park Theatre I wondered if this was community theatre. It's far from it. Park Theatre is one of London's leading Off-West End venues, and it has a remarkable origin story. Founders Jez and Melli Bond spent six years searching London for a building before finding a vacant office block beside Finsbury Park station in 2010. With support from stars such as Ian McKellen and Alan Rickman, they raised the money to convert it for just £2.6 million, and it opened in May 2013.

Today it runs two stages, the 200-seat Park200 and the 90-seat Park90 studio. In its short life it has sent ten productions on to the West End, including The Boys in the Band with Mark Gatiss and David Haig's Pressure, and it has won Theatre of the Year from The Stage.

A Neighbourhood Reinventing Itself

The streets around the theatre look fresh and new, and much of it is. The area beside the station was transformed by City North, a large development of shops, restaurants, a cinema and two 21-storey residential towers built over old industrial land. It also gave Finsbury Park station a new entrance with step-free access.

Just beyond the gleaming new buildings is the older, characterful north London. Finsbury Park itself, a large Victorian park, is right on the doorstep. Stroud Green Road is lined with independent cafés, pubs and restaurants, and Arsenal's Emirates Stadium is a short walk south. If you arrive early, a stroll through the park and dinner on Stroud Green Road make the perfect warm-up to a show.

Back Into the Bright Lights

After the final notes, I headed back to the station and took the Piccadilly line south, hopping off at Covent Garden. Stepping out into the Friday-night buzz, with its crowds, street performers and glowing restaurants, was quite a contrast to the quiet intensity of the play. I walked back to my hotel through the lively streets, still hearing Szpilman's music in my head.

Park Theatre offered something the big West End houses rarely can: a moment of real intimacy, close enough to feel every breath of the story. I would happily make the trip north again. The Pianist at Park Theatre runs until November 28, 2026.