Mamma Mia! – Review – Leeds Grand Theatre
By Matt Callard, June 2026
On the night England’s footballers got the nation cheering in the World Cup, Leeds Grand hosted a very different, but no less enjoyable, kind of feel-good entertainment. No VAR checks here – just sunshine, spandex, platform boots and the sort of pop theatre that’s as feel-good as a Harry Kane hatrick.
Mamma Mia! is probably the ultimate theatrical escape. It is loud in colour and volume, broad and occasionally bawdy, but after 25 years in almost continuous production, it is also super-slick, beautifully drilled and professionally polished until it gleams. More importantly, it remains a joyful tribute to the timeless brilliance of the songs of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
Set on the fictional Greek island of Kalokairi, it follows Sophie (Lydia Hunt) as she prepares to marry her fiancé, Sky (Joe Grundy). Having grown up with her fiercely independent mother, Donna (Jenn Griffin), but never knowing her father, Sophie secretly invites three possible candidates to the wedding without telling anyone.
Their arrival stirs up old romance, comic confusion and unresolved feelings, especially for Donna, whose past comes dancing back. Around the central mystery of Sophie’s parentage, the show explores mothers and daughters, friendship, independence, second chances and the bittersweet business of letting go – all threaded through ABBA’s greatest hits (and a couple of misses).
“Bright and relaxed”
So, very much in the spirit of the show, with the plot out of the way – let’s get on with the singing and dancing.
There is an ensemble of 16 to back up an already large cast, so the big routines shake sometimes to the point of bedlam. ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!’ is fizzing and riotous, while Sarah Earnshaw, as the gloriously high-maintenance Tanya, clearly relishes her scenes with the various members of the shirts-off male troupe (there’s barely a moment when the male ensemble don’t have their shirts off). Throughout, Tanya’s waspish tones add a welcome layer of bite to a show that might otherwise teeter towards twee.
“Voulez-Vous” is dramatic and frantic, with Sophie unravelling on the disco floor as the plot’s sunny nonsense begins to cloud over. Even the lesser-known ‘Under Attack’ gets the full treatment, opening Act Two as a funny, jolting dream sequence in which the boys appear in flippers and Sophie’s three possible fathers close in like dancing phantoms.
The cast is excellent throughout – well-drilled, vocally bright and relaxed enough to give the show the looseness that is part of its charm. Hunt brings a fresh, clear-eyed energy to Sophie, while Griffin gives Donna both grit and vulnerability. Her ‘The Winner Takes It All’ is an emotionally sincere highpoint.
“Disco rush”
Vocally, the female leads are superb – crystal clear, crisp and full of character. The men are less consistent, occasionally drifting towards the Pierce Brosnan school of musical theatre (if you know, you know). But that, as true fans will know, is part of the fun. Mamma Mia! has never been a museum piece of immaculate vocal solemnity. It is a people-pleaser, a party, an act of surrender to songs that are in the national bloodstream.
The sets are effective, if simple – a revolving Greek taverna, shifting between exterior and interior, set against a blue sea and white moon backdrop. I didn’t find myself craving more variety, which is often the sign of a compelling show.
Audiences need shows like Mamma Mia! because they are a sunlit doorway out of the daily grind. It all ends with a disco rush of karaoke on steroids as ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Dancing Queen’ and a why-the-hell-not blast of ‘Waterloo’ gets the audience out of their seats for a thoroughly satisfying finale.
‘Mamma Mia!‘ is at Leeds Grand Theatre until 27th June
images: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg
