Heathers The Musical
Heathers The Musical opened last night to expectant applause
and closed to a rapturous standing ovation.
This latest in the series of new modern musicals is based on Michael
Lehmann’s 1989 black comedy and manages to retain all the danger,
uncomfortableness and thought-provoking whilst delivering it with a stunning
score and no shortage of gallows humour.
Heathers is set in a stereotypical High School (think more
13 Reasons Why rather than Grease) with the usual groups of jocks, nerds, cool
kids and, of course, Heathers. Here, the
Heathers, 3 rich and entitled seniors, control who is in, who is out and who
deserves to be just left alone.
Veronica (Rebecca Wickes – Six, We Will Rock You) is a plain
Jane who wants to be noticed more and so attempts to befriend the
Heathers. Usually this would be met with
an acerbic put-down, but Veronica has a skill that she can forge handwriting
and as such the Heathers see this (and Veronica’s not so subtly disguised
beauty) as reason to bring her into the gang. Rebecca is a brilliant as Veronica; a feisty pocket dynamo with great range and wonderful timing.
The Heathers; Chandler (Maddison Firth – Six, Waterloo Road),
Duke (Merryl Ansah – Lion King) and McNamara (Lizzy Parker – Urinetown The
Musical) begin to force Veronica to turn her back on her friends and adopt
their callous, snide and bitchy approach to their classmates. This doesn’t sit well with Veronica but the
rewards of attention prove too big a draw to refuse so she does their bidding,
albeit under duress. (Not surprising as Firth, Ansah and Parker are very convincing as manipulative divas)
Seeking someone she can confide in, Veronica falls for Jason
‘J.D.’ (Simon Gordon – Urban Myths, Moulin Rouge – Secret Theatre) a new guy at
school who she soon finds is more Lone Wulf than Lonely Soul, he begins to lead her into deadly revenge on the
Heathers and all those who follow them.
There is no mistaking the darkness in this production; murder,
poisoning, teen suicide, attempted date rape are some weighty topics but they
are delivered in the guise of High School life and Director Andy Fickman hits
the right level everytime. With a
stunning score and some brilliant performances, this never feels preachy, nor does
it stray into exploitation. The young
cast ensure that there is no dip in energy and brilliantly portray the hectic, chaos
of High School.
Whilst the premise of Heathers is elitism and exclusion, the
show actually celebrates tolerance, inclusivity and acceptance, nowhere better
seen than in ‘My Dead Gay Son’ – a brilliantly hilarious coming out song.
Heathers is at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle until September 11th, tickets from
No comments:
Post a Comment