A Man for All Seasons

The Verdict

Martin Shaw, at 80, returned to the role of Sir Thomas More that he had played in 2006 for Michael Rudman at Theatre Royal Haymarket — a return that gave Jonathan Church's production its central reason for being. Shaw's More was not the brisk, witty figure of Paul Scofield's 1960s definitive performance, but a slower, more deliberately grave reading: a Lord Chancellor whose conscience felt physically weighted. The Times praised what it called Shaw's saintly gravitas. Around him, Church assembled a careful, period-perfect production: Simon Higlett's set used moveable timber-and-canvas walls to suggest both Tudor court and prison cell; Gary Wilmot's Common Man — the play's audience-addressing chorus figure — provided much of the production's energy and humour.

After an eight-venue UK tour from January to March, brief follow-on stops at Brighton and York, and the 38-performance Harold Pinter Theatre run in August and September 2025, the production was widely regarded as a model touring revival: well-cast, traditionally staged, faithful to Bolt's text. Reviewers were near-unanimous on the strength of the lead performances; the more reserved notices argued that Church's reverence for the play occasionally tipped into stateliness, and that the running time was demanding. The Harold Pinter run sold out in advance.

What made it notable

• Martin Shaw's return to More. Nearly twenty years after his last attempt at the role, Shaw — best known to television audiences as Judge John Deed — gave one of his most-praised stage performances. Critics consistently noted that his voice and bearing carried decades of authority into the part.
• Gary Wilmot as The Common Man. Wilmot — usually associated with musicals (Wicked, Me and My Girl, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) — was a revelation in the play's narrator role, by turns chorus, jailer, executioner and gravedigger.
• Jonathan Church's traditional staging. The former Chichester Festival Theatre artistic director — now leading the Sydney Theatre Company — delivered the kind of unfussy, design-rich, language-led production that has become rare in the post-pandemic West End. Bolt's text was treated as the star.
• The eight-venue UK tour. Theatre Royal Bath, Chichester, Malvern, Cheltenham, Oxford, Guildford, Canterbury and Richmond — followed by Brighton and York — before the West End. A textbook regional-to-West End touring model.
• The play's contemporary resonance. Reviewers consistently noted how Bolt's 1960 study of a man forced to choose between conscience and political compliance felt unintentionally topical in 2025. A line about laws that "give men due process" drew audible reactions in performance.