Review: We'll Always Have Paris
📍 White Bear Theatre
🗓️ 30th September 2026
🎟️ PR Invite
We'll Always Have Paris is a new play written by Paul Kalburgi, which has been running at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington for the last few weeks, ending its run on 3 October. Inspired by cinema's greatest love stories, this 120-minute play, with a 15-minute interval, tells its own love story but with a heartbreaking twist.
The play follows Ginny, a 40-something-year-old cinema usher and aspiring playwright, who is trying to rebuild her life following the death of her fiancé. With her mother informing her that year is enough time to put her life on hold, she attempts to get back out into the world and meet someone, but in a world of dating apps, will it be that easy?
As audience members enter the theatre, we are immediately welcomed by an old movie projected onto the wall of a half-empty living room, with boxes and unopened letters scattered on the ground. The play is told primarily through narrative, with Ginny telling the audience her story directly. When we meet Ginny she is alone, with a bottle of wine and a phone that won't stop pinging. Over the next couple of hours, we discover her past, her frustrations with her future and watch her navigate her new life in which she has to find herself all over again.
Overall, I found the pacing of the performance a little off. The first act, running at 75 minutes, seemed a bit excessive and I do think it would benefit from some tightening to really make it that bit stronger as a piece. It felt at times that not everything happeneing within the act was necessarily needed to drive the narrative forward and there were few a moments that felt a bit repetitive. Some scene changes in the first act also felt a little bit too long. However, I felt that first act did finish strongly and set up the second act nicely. The second act was a lot stronger and at 45 minutes seemed to structure the narrative more effectively.
Kay Brattan's direction was wonderful, with projections of Hollywood movies projected on the screens behind the actors at various moments throughout the play which added an old-style Hollywood romance to the production. Clever use of moving panels transformed the space into various locations, from Ginny's living room, to IKEA to the cinema, and indeed, Paris itself. There were a few moments where large set pieces were carried onto the stage during a scene which was a bit distracting. As they were quite large - a bed and cinema seats - it took the spotlight away from Ginny when the focus should have been on her and the emotion of the scene.
The cast of three were an absolute highlight of the performance. Ginny was played by Miranda Colmans, who really captured the vulnerability and struggles of her character. She barely leaves the stage for the full runtime of the play, which makes her performance even more impressive. You could see how her character was struggling to cope with the loss, unhelped by comparing her life to old school friends, bad dating app experiences and financial issues. Her story is both sad and heartwarming and Colmans delivers this beautifully.
Cyril Blake takes on an extraordinary number of characters throughout the piece, from playing Ginny's fiancé during flashback moments to playing a wide range of men she is chatting to on Tinder - performing an impressive number of accents giving each one their own distinct personality and bringing a lot of humour to the play. He jumps between roles quickly, never breaking the momentum of the piece.
Eliza Williams also impresses as Trish, Ginny's mother, delivering a powerful performance of a woman going through her own struggles but wanting to support and be there for her daughter. The relationship between them is one I'd like to have seen more of, considering their shared experiences. Williams also takes on multiple roles besides this, playing other characters that have popped up in Ginny's life, both past and present - from the overdramatic and loud Penny, a former bully from school, to a rather heartless debt collector.
The three actors work well together to deliver a convincing story of heartbreak and dealing with very realistic personalities that a person would come across in everyday life.
The writing itself tells a beautiful story, with heartbreak and humour. You really get a sense of who Ginny is, who Jerry was and how perfect they were for one another, with a shared love of film as the underlying theme throughout the piece. Each of the characters are well defined with their personalities evident from the moment you meet them. The show is less about falling in love, but actually about learning to survive with a broken heart, trying to move on when you don't know how and finding out who you are all over again when everything you knew has changed. The flashback scenes where we see how her life was with Jerry are really beautiful and really add to the pain and struggle she is feeling after this loss. Despite unlucky experiences with modern dating, it all leads her back to the place that brought her the most happiness, which brings the story full circle in a really emotional way.
We'll Always Have Paris is a really beautiful play, with a really strong cast and plenty of humour mixed in. It's a good twist on a traditional rom-com, moving away from the story of falling in love and instead looking at what happens when you lose the person you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. You really feel for Ginny as a character and her journey of rediscovery and learning how to live with her grief is what makes the story so heartbreaking.
I think some tightening would make this play that bit stronger overall - particularly the first act - but there's so much to enjoy here. The performances, writing and staging all work really well together and I loved journey that Ginny went on. It's a beautiful story about grief, moving on and finding yourself again.
We'll Always Have Paris continues its run at the White Bear Theatre until 3 September 2026.
