Check out what critics have been saying about the true crime musical, which has transferred to London from Sheffield.
Broadway World: **** “this show is such a feast for both the eyes and the ears. With little more than a step ladder, an LED archway, several microphone stands, and a liberally employed smoke machine, designer Anisha Fields evokes everything from an empty saloon bar to a high-speed police chase. The effect is intimate even in such a vast space, as though Holden’s cast of characters are letting us in on the realities of their lives, at our own peril.”
Musical Theatre Review: **** ” Bold, atmospheric and anchored by a virtuoso central performance, KENREX is a darkly compelling triumph – a story of a town reclaiming power, told inventively and without judgement.”
Everything Theatre: ***** “Writers Holden and Stambollouian have chosen a true story with a gripping sequence of events, unexpected twists, moral ambiguity, and themes that resonate beyond the world of true crime. It expresses the impotent rage of the persecuted and asks what justice looks like when the judicial system fails, but it also invites sympathy with Ken Rex, the bully, inviting us to weigh his impoverished upbringing and various disadvantages in the balance.”
The Standard: **** “It’s a thrilling, dynamic, bravura piece of work, and quite sui generis in my experience.”
All That Dazzles: ***** “Jack Holden deserves all the recognition he is sure to get from this performance – there aren’t enough superlatives in the world to even express just how good it is.”
London Theatre.co.uk: ***** “Never sensationalising its subject, the production is also an examination of justice and retribution in small-town America, where poverty, lack of opportunity and a questionable legal system bubble under an ordinary community just trying to get by. Their silence in the face of Kenrex’s murder (nicely illustrated by Holden pulling the power cords out of a circle of microphones) shows the clash between what is legal and what is just.”
Theatre & Tonic: ***** “The staging and movement are masterfully crafted by movement director Sarah Golding, whose work elevates the piece without ever overwhelming it. It’s so simple, yet so effective, allowing the story to unfold with remarkable fluidity.”
The Arts Desk: **** “If the play sidesteps (just) the cliché of a Butch and Sundance ending, some of the air does go out of the balloon after the interval, as shit gets very real indeed. Questions about the true purpose of a legal system and whether ends can ever justify means are dealt with, at best, sketchily, but that detracts little from a coruscating example of theatrical conception and execution.”
West End Best Friend: ***** “KENREX is pure theatre: fully engrossing entertainment, intrigue, and humour. It is a thrumming bassline accompanying an absorbing tale, a juicy mystery in “True Crime” style, with a satisfying conclusion you may or may not see coming. It is earnest without insistence and its moral complexities, one unravelled, leave you feeling like you’ve learnt something.”
The Spy in the Stalls: ***** “Kenrex is a wickedly clever, propulsive and wildly entertaining piece of theatre. It’s the kind of show that reminds you how expansive solo performance can be when craft, character and design lock together with this much precision. A small-town saga becomes a full-scale epic through nothing but light, sound and one performer who seems able to conjure an entire county out of thin air.”
London Unattached: **** 1/2 “Holden’s masterful delivery never misses a beat. McFadin’s lovably unscrupulous lawyer reminded me of Better Call Saul’s Jimmy McGill. The townsfolk conspiring in our anti-hero’s fate was reminiscent of Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and the unemotional recounting of facts echoed the narration of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. It seems we’re all addicted to true crime as a balm to our weary lives these days; KENREX taps into that craving whilst injecting enough irony and humour to have you leave the theatre on a bizarrely upbeat note. As psychopathic entertainment goes, it’s a fun night out!”
A Young(ish) Perspective: ***** “Under Ed Stambollouian’s masterful direction, all other elements on stage work as smoothly and transformatively as the story itself.”
Theatre Weekly: ***** “Kenrex probes the limits of law and the price of silence. It is theatre at its most electrifying: bold, inventive and unflinchingly honest. Holden and Stambollouian have created a production that grips relentlessly, and in this transfer its power is undiminished. With its immersive soundscape and electrifying live music, Kenrex asserts itself as the triumph it undeniably is.”
North West End: ***** “Kenrex is a blistering inventive piece of theatre that will leave you thinking about it afterwards. It’s a splendid fusion of genres and unlike anything else on stage at the moment. The creative team deserve every plaudit for bringing this extraordinary piece to the stage. This should be an awards contender and don’t be surprised to see it have further life in the West End, it would be well deserved.”
Kenrex continues to play at The Other Palace until the 1st February 2026. To book tickets click here.