The in-the-round auditorium of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre has always excelled at drawing audiences into the emotional heart of a story. With Fun Home– the Tony Award-winning musical based on Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir- director Sarah Frankcom returns to the venue with a production that feels perfectly matched to its uniquely intimate setting. It’s a quietly devastating evening that trusts its audience to sit with life’s contradictions rather than resolve them.

Jeanine Tesori’s score and Lisa Kron’s witty, perceptive book refuse easy sentimentality. Instead, the musical unfolds through fragmented memories as cartoonist Alison Bechdel revisits her childhood in the family’s funeral home in rural Pennsylvania, exploring her coming out alongside her increasingly complex understanding of her father, Bruce. Time slips seamlessly between past and present, allowing revelations to emerge naturally rather than through brash theatrics.

Jodie McNee anchors the production with remarkable emotional precision as the adult Alison. Her performance is a thoughtful one, capturing someone attempting to redraw the emotional map of her own life. McNee never forces the character’s introspection, allowing moments of humour and vulnerability to exist side by side.

Opposite her, Nigel Harman delivers a textured Bruce Bechdel. Charismatic, controlling, affectionate and deeply damaged, Harman resists the temptation to simplify a profoundly contradictory man.

The younger Alisons (Alice Audrey O’Hanlon and Harriet O’Shea) bring warmth, vocal gusto and naturalism to the production, while Alex Young’s quietly restrained Helen Bechdel leaves a lasting impression, particularly during moments when her silence speaks louder than words. Throughout the ensemble there is an effortless fluidity, with scenes flowing cinematically despite the production’s minimalism.

Peter Butler’s design embraces the Royal Exchange’s circular space rather than attempting to overwhelm it. The funeral home emerges through carefully chosen details rather than elaborate scenery, allowing Bethany Gupwell’s lighting and Tony Gayle’s sound design to shape the shifting moods with understated confidence.

Musically, Fun Home is unusually subtle. Tesori’s score avoids obvious showstoppers in favour of songs that gradually accumulate emotional gravitas. By the closing scenes, melodies that initially seemed understated have gathered quite the weight. Rather than chasing applause, the music quietly deepens our understanding of each character, though this could be heightened again with a touch more gusto in the orchestrations. The production’s deliberate emotional restraint occasionally keeps the audience at arm’s length, and those unfamiliar with the source material may take time to settle into its fragmented structure. Yet patience is richly rewarded as the narrative pieces slowly assemble into something quite profound and moving.

This new staging demonstrates why Fun Home remains one of the quietly defining musicals of the past two decades- Sarah Frankcom’s sensitive direction honours both its emotional complexity and its humanity, creating a production that understands grief, identity and family rarely offer neat conclusions. Here, Fun Home becomes exactly what great theatre can be: intimate, compassionate and quietly unforgettable.

Fun Home plays at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre until Saturday 1st August. Further information and booking details can be found here.

Tickets received in exchange for an honest review. #AD

Photography by Johan Persson.