REVIEW: Hunchback of Notre Dames, Pip Utton, Prague Fringe 2026 ★★★★

There’s nobody who finds beauty in monstrosity better than the biographical theatre legend and the honourable member of the all stars Prague Fringe society – Pip Utton. After touring around Europe, he’s finally bringing his Hunchback of Notre Dames to this year’s Prague Fringe.

Utton is well known to Prague Fringe goers as the one-man show powerhouse behind last year’s King Lear and 2024’s At Home with Will Shakespeare, among many others. These powerful origin stories of well loved (or well hated – we’re looking at you King Lear) historical or fictional characters always succeed at showing us the flipped side of these men. Utton is a brilliant storyteller, his narrative structure is captivating and his performance is magnetic. No matter who he transforms into, we cannot look away.

The design elements of the show are simple – there is practically no sound or light design. The show relies on the performance and the script to carry it and while it is successful, the immersion and the emotional impact would be greater if there were technical elements to aid the building of the atmosphere. The stripped back setting of the show offers some room for improvement, though this is a minor detail in comparison to the incredible feat that Utton achieves.

Quasimodo is an emotional narrator, at times eloquent, other times childlike and playful, funny even. There is a sense of bidding his own life goodbye in the narrative structure of the piece. We’re not watching the events unfold in real time, we’re hearing the reconstruction of the memories of the events of the original 1831 novel. Quasimodo is telling us exactly what brought him here, to this moment, very shortly before his own death.

Utton holds the audience at the edge of their seats invested in the story from the very beginning all the way to the end – even though we all know how it ends – after all, the corpse of Esmeralda is the first thing we see, there’s not much left to be done before it’s all over for Quasimodo as well. There’s still enough time however to contemplate the existence of God, his relationship with Him, the Father who brought him up, as well as the more philosophical parts of the narrative – including the nature of beauty or vivid descriptions of corporal punishments. Particularly strong is the love letter to Paris that allows us to almost see the city through the eye(s) of the character and the loving description of the cathedral bells.

You’ve called me ugly so often that even my soul believes it.“

There’s simple innocence in the way Utton performs vulnerable yet strong hunchback character. The prosthetic eyepatch and the hunch help him with his physicality and don’t distract from his acting. He invites the audience to feel deep sense of empathy for the troubled character and reaches right into the souls of those who are watching for introspection. This makes the story still relevant even today – it reveals how love is born out of small acts of kindness while also holding powerless audience accountable for being onlookers in crisis, instead of acting on our moral impulses to help the ones in need. Utton’s adaptation is yet another proof that The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a timeless story of love, madness and passion and we cannot wait to see what other eternally relevant piece he’s going to bless us with at next year’s Prague Fringe!

Recommended Drink: A glass of crisp ice cold water brought to you by your crush

Performances of Pip Utton: Hunchback of Notre Dames have now concluded at Prague Fringe 2026.