REVIEW: To Kill A Mockingbird at Newcastle Theatre Royal

To Kill A Mockingbird

Newcastle Theatre Royal

Until Saturday 25 April 2026

Aaron Sorkin's stage adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird arrives at Newcastle Theatre Royal as part of its UK and Ireland tour, directed by Bartlett Sher and presented by Jonathan Church Theatre Productions. The production brings to the North East a piece of theatre that has already proven itself on both Broadway and in London's West End, and this touring company, headed by Patrick O’Kane as Atticus Finch with Anna Munden as Scout, makes a powerful case for why this story still needs to be told in the live theatre.

Aaron Shosanya (Tom Robinson)

Harper Lee's novel was published in 1960, winning the Pulitzer Prize and becoming one of the most widely read books in the English language. Sorkin's stage adaptation, which first opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre in December 2018, is the first major professional adaptation to reach UK stages and is notable for a number of reasons beyond its theatrical pedigree. The road to production was not without turbulence: the Lee estate initially contested the script in the American courts, concerned that Sorkin had shifted the narrative focus from Scout to Atticus Finch himself, allowing the lawyer's moral character to evolve across the drama rather than remaining the fixed moral compass of the novel. A settlement was eventually reached, and the production went on to become a Broadway record-breaker for a non-musical play. The West End run at the Gielgud Theatre followed in 2022, and this UK tour marks the first time audiences across the country have had the opportunity to see Sorkin's version on their doorstep.

Dylan Malyn (Dill Harris), Anna Munden (Scout Finch), Gabrield Scott (Jem Finch)

The play opens with the three children. Scout, Jem and Dill, addressing the audience directly from a bare stage. It is a deliberate and effective theatrical choice, establishing immediately that this is a story being remembered and reconsidered, not simply re-enacted. From there the narrative unfolds in 1930s Maycomb, Alabama, a small Southern town where gossip travels fast and certain things go unquestioned. We are quickly introduced to Atticus, a quietly principled lawyer and widowed father, who has taken on the legal defence of Tom Robinson, a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman named Mayella Ewell. What strikes the audience in these opening scenes is how effectively Sorkin establishes both the warmth of the community and its complacency, the neighbourly courtesies that coexist with deep injustice. The children dart between the town's characters, trying to make sense of a world whose rules are only gradually being revealed to them, and to us.

Evie Hargreaves (Mayella Ewell)

Patrick O’Kane brings considerable weight to Atticus Finch without resorting to the kind of noble rigidity that can make the character feel more symbol than human. His Atticus is a man working through his own assumptions alongside the audience, and the performance is the stronger for it. Around him, the three young performers at the centre of the piece, Anna Munden as Scout, Gabriel Scott as Jem, and Dylan Malyn as Dill, are a genuine delight to watch. Their chemistry is natural and unforced, the camaraderie between the children entirely believable. Munden in particular holds the stage with confidence, her Scout curious and direct, carrying the emotional intelligence of someone beginning to understand a world that is not as simple as she had hoped. Together, the four of them form the heart of the production, and the scenes they share have an ease that makes the heavier material all the more affecting.

Oscar Pearce (Bob Ewell)

Sorkin's script is also genuinely funny, and the production earns its laughs honestly. The children's bickering logic, Dill's flights of wild imagination, and the dry comic timing that Coyle brings to several of Atticus's exchanges with his neighbours provide moments of real warmth and levity. This humour is not incidental — it is doing important dramatic work. By giving the audience room to laugh and breathe, the production creates an emotional texture that makes the darker turns land with greater impact. The light relief does not soften the blow of what follows; it sharpens it. An audience that has been charmed is an audience more fully invested, and when the mood shifts, the shift is felt all the more keenly.

Richard Coyle (Atticus Finch) & Aaron Shosanya (Tom Robinson)

Stephen Boxer's Judge Taylor brings a measured authority to the courtroom scenes, his presence a reminder of the institutional weight behind proceedings that are, in their outcome, far from impartial. Aaron Shosanya as Tom Robinson brings quiet dignity to a role that is all too easily reduced to a symbol, and his scenes carry a stillness that is deeply affecting. Oscar Pearce's Bob Ewell is menacing in the right register. unpleasant without being cartoonish, and Evie Hargreaves as Mayella Ewell brings a genuine complexity to what might have been a thankless role, finding the trapped desperation of a young woman caught between her own actions and her circumstances.

Andrea Davy (Calpurnia)

This is a play that moves its audience, and at times moves them to tears. The courtroom sequences build steadily to a conclusion that, even for those who know the story well, lands with real force. However, it is important that prospective audience members are aware that the production does not shy away from the racist language and attitudes of the period it depicts. Offensive terms are used on stage as part of an authentic representation of 1930s Alabama, and while this is a considered and purposeful creative decision, it may be distressing for some audience members. The production is not gratuitous in its approach, but it is unflinching, and rightly so. This is a story that derives its power from honesty.

Richard Coyle (Atticus Finch)

Newcastle Theatre Royal deserves credit for programming To Kill a Mockingbird in a season that has already shown commendable ambition. It would be easy for a receiving house of this scale to fill its diary with crowd-pleasing musicals alone, and while there is, of course, a place for those, it is genuinely pleasing to see a play of this substance and seriousness given the platform of the Royal's main stage. This reviewer left the theatre grateful for the experience. If you have the opportunity to see the show before it closes on Saturday 25 April, take it.

Review: Stephen Oliver

Photos: Johan Persson

Tickets:

To Kill a Mockingbird will run at Newcastle Theatre Royal from 21–25 April 2026.

Tickets are available from theatreroyal.co.uk  or via the Box Office on 091 232 7010.

Review corrections updated: 24/4/26