Review: MILES. at Southwark Playhouse Borough

Date: 11/02/26

Stars: 5

MILES. walks in with one of the biggest names in music hanging over it, and it would’ve been very easy for the show to turn into a kind of respectful tribute. A few famous tracks, a few facts, a sense that you’re watching something fairly interesting… But that isn’t what this is.

Instead, it feels like being pulled into a late-night conversation with a legend. The show uses the recording of Kind of Blue as its starting point, but it isn’t really interested in ticking through Miles Davis’s life in order; it’s interested in the atmosphere around him. The myth. The influence. The way an artist can still feel alive decades later.

And the truth is, the most surprising thing about MILES. is how completely it works even if you don’t know the first thing about jazz.

Not being a jazz person, and knowing basically nothing about Miles Davis beyond the name, I was worried I’d feel a bit locked out, but that never happens. The performances are so strong, and the storytelling is so immediate, that you just go with it, and you find yourself transfixed.

At the centre are Jay Phelps, playing trumpet live onstage, and Benjamin Akintuyosi, who embodies Miles with this cool, sharp presence that never slips into imitation. Their dynamic is the engine of the piece; Phelps feels like an artist reaching backwards, trying to understand what legacy actually means, while Akintuyosi’s Miles stays elusive, magnetic, and occasionally maddening.

Design-wise, it’s a beautiful piece of theatre too. The lighting by Alex Lewer and video work by Colin J Smith create this hazy, late-night texture, with projections and archival flashes that make it feel less like a biography and more like memory. The sound design by Will Tonna ties it all together so that everything feels part of the same world.

The heart of it is extraordinary.

MILES. doesn’t feel like a history lesson; it feels like an encounter. You don’t come away with a neat list of facts about Miles Davis, you come away with a sense of why he mattered, and why the music still matters, even if you thought jazz wasn’t for you.

That’s a rare kind of theatre trick.

MILES. plays at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 7th March 2026: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/miles/