(seen at the afternoon performance on 15th May 2025)
Total disaster.
Conceived in a time where huge pit orchestras delivered lush arrangements of glorious tunes, to reduce a show never intended to be “actor / musician” is a travesty.
In fairness, it might work in a small experimental venue like The Watermill, but on a big London stage it looks and sounds shockingly cheap.
Catherine Jaynes’s already skimpy orchestrations are lost for the most part in the biscuit tin sound design of Ben Harrison. In the front stalls, it was sometimes unclear whether the show was being played in another venue or on next-door’s hi-fi system.
Worse, Nikoli Foster and Nic Winston manage to isolate the company by forcing them to concentrate on playing instruments rather than playing as actors with and for each other. The sense of a small community in the Black Hills vanishes entirely in the face of such necessarily stilted interaction.
Further cutting off the audience from interacting, Matthew Wright’s ill-thought-out set places a key “vaudeville” stage at the rear of the real stage. With unerring genius, Foster and Winston place actors between it and the audience – blocking the view of important moments. “Masking” is “Directing 101.” Clearly the entire production team had better things to do that day.
It is no surprise that Carrie Hope Fletcher in the title role is left to fend for herself and fails entirely to tell us who Jane is, until approximately four-fifths of the way through the show. That her big moment was ruined by thoughtless audience members – and that Ms Hope Fletcher stormed through it – is to her credit.
Richard Lock as Rattlesnake is the other main actor to suffer badly. Drastically over-cooking his performance, it is arguable with his unrestrained “Uncle Albert” performance he should have been in “Only Fools and Horses The Musical” instead. Not an ounce his fault, another directorial failure.
It is not entirely as disaster. Samuel Holmes as Francis Fryer is allowed plenty of stage time to concentrate on his job, not making music. His “Everyone Complains About The Weather” raises early hopes that the show will fly. Sadly dashed except in his scenes.
The rest of the company gamely keep going, almost raising a chuckle or two and demonstrating that the show has a couple of indestructible tunes.
Sadly, by three scenes into the second act, it is very clear we should be grateful it wraps up fast. The last of the deadwood is burned through at a good rate, and we are out in 2 hours 15 rather than suffer further.
Windy city? They blew it.
1 star.
Photo credit: Mark Senior. Used by kind permission of the New Wimbledon Theatre press office.