Review: Chester Music and Theatre Company’s Follies at Chester Town Hall

Words: Paul Crofts & Angela Ferguson

Photos courtesy of Stephen Cain Photography

On an otherwise unremarkable Thursday evening in Chester, We Are Chester’s Angela Ferguson and Paul Crofts were transported to the 1970s and a crumbling Broadway theatre for Chester Music and Theatre Company’s (CMTC) ambitious production of Follies.

With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a script by James Goldman, Follies tells the story of a group of performers – the Weismann Girls – who meet up for one final time at the derelict and soon to be demolished Weismann Theatre.

As the girls reminisce, they perform their old routines, often accompanied by the ghosts of their younger selves.

Ambitions, regrets and unrequited love feature as lives are laid bare and some of the assembled company must confront the shadows of the past through a series of  songs  describing the “follies” of their youth. 

Featuring some classic Sondheim songs including Broadway Baby, I’m Still Here and Losing My Mind, Follies is not a show to be taken lightly and CMTC’s artistic director David Whitely made some brave choices in staging this production of it, not least using the length of the assembly room at the Town Hall.

Whilst this worked really well for the big production number featuring the ensemble, it occasionally made it difficult to see which character was singing or delivering dialogue, depending on where you were sitting.

A few first night technical hitches with sound meant that dialogue and lyrics were sometimes lost which was a shame given how hard the cast were clearly working.

Bringing together such a large ensemble cast was no mean feat and so hats off to the production team for their hard work in delivering this complex production. 

There were some lovely standout moments, not least of which was Hannah Thomas as Sally Durant Plummer giving us a spellbinding performance of Losing My Mind, pitch perfect and sung with the right level of emotion. Bravo Hannah.

The orchestra, under the baton of Louise Ellinson, coped admirably with the complexities of Sondheim’s score.

Choreography by Abigail Bradbury was lively and evocative of the roaring 20s, making good use of the space and utilising the ensemble cast and additional dancers well. 

Following a re-brand last year, changing its name from Chester Operatic Society to Chester Music and Theatre Company, it’s good to see that the company are very much still here.

Follies certainly provided a welcome escape from the outside world for a few hours with a little bit of much needed glitz and glamour and its always a thrill to experience a live performance in the beautiful and historic surroundings of Chester Town Hall.

The show all too soon over, it was time to head back out onto a busy Town Hall Square and back into the real world.

Paul Crofts & Angela Ferguson October 2026