★★★★ ‘Charlie Archer is a joy to watch, presenting a character whose innocence and naivety is a joy to behold… Billy Budd is a show worth watching… for a multitude of reasons, not least for Archer’s performance in the title role. This kind of talent is not to be missed.’ Whatsonstage

★★★★ ‘secret/heart have sailed a memorable piece of nautical theatre into the harbour of the new Southwark Playhouse’ The Public Reviews

‘a very masculine, powerful tale. Charlie Archer captures the character perfectly’ The Stage

‘swells with an authentic atmosphere of clanging metal and booming bass shanties. It carries its audience away…’ Time Out

Nominated for two Off West End Awards (Best Male Performance for Charlie Archer and Best Ensemble)

Billy Budd is a stage adaptation of Hermann Melville’s classic saga of events aboard a British man-of-war during the Napoleonic wars.

When the young sailor foundling Billy Budd is forced to leave the ship he calls home and impressed onto another, his innocence and charisma make him instantly popular with all his new crewmates – except one…

Billy Budd is a nautical recasting of the Fall, a parable of good and evil, a meditation on justice and political governance, and a searching portrait of three extraordinary men.

“Astonishingly modern… Heartstopping” The Guardian on Director Seb Harcombe’s The Illusion (2012)