ajhlovestheatre

& JULIET

Music and lyrics by Max Martin

Book by David West Read

Directed by Luke Sheppard

on National UK tour – at New Wimbledon Theatre, London until 1 February 2025 then tour continues to Aberdeen, Leicester, Dublin, Woking, Bradford, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Birmingham, Southend, Stoke, Sheffield, Newcastle, Truro and Cardiff

running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including interval

https://www.andjulietthemusical.co.uk

With a unique combination of Shakespearean quotes, wise-cracking humour, garishly beautiful spectacle and some of the most uplifting pop bangers of the ‘90s and the ‘00s, & Juliet is the classiest of jukebox musicals. This reimagining of what might’ve happened if Juliet chose NOT to drink the poison when she thinks Romeo has died, is populated with familiar pop numbers by Max Martin, whose name may not be familiar to the lay person but whose songs (Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’, Britney’s ‘…Baby One More Time’, Pink’s ‘Perfect’, Bon Jovi’s ‘It’s My Life’, Backstreet Boys’s ‘I Want It That Way’ and ‘Backstreet’s Back’…the list is endless and all featured here) most certainly are. Surely there are few modern musicals more tuneful or as rambunctiously life-affirming, and seeing it again in this energetic, exhilarating touring version reconfirms why it ran so long in the West End and has enjoyed international success (the Broadway iteration has already been playing for a couple of years and shows no signs of moving on). 

Book writer David West Read is one of the scribes on TV’s beloved Schitt’s Creek and his script for this gorgeous tuner has some of the same off-the-wall wit tempered with moments of surprising emotional depth. He also borrows liberally from the Bard (and not just Romeo and Juliet) so that one moment a character is using modern parlance (there’s a bracingly contemporary, if simplistic, attitude to relationships and gender) and the next they’ve switched seamlessly to verse. The songs of course are utter earworms that would carry the evening even if almost everything else wasn’t so enjoyable. 

Luke Sheppard’s production, dressed up with Jennifer Weber’s dynamic, pop video-inspired dances and the dazzling designs of Soutra Gilmour (set) and Paloma Young (costumes) which fuse Elizabethan ruffs with clubwear and pop art with Olde Worlde elegance, is a turbo-charged treat. It feels a little scaled down from the original and what you can currently see on Broadway (there’s no revolve or rising platform, Juliet only has one parent now, and the vehicle that conveys the leading players from Verona to Paris has been downgraded from an elaborately decorated caravan to a lightbulb-strewn rickshaw) but it doesn’t matter much.

If the physical production is a tad disappointing for anybody who’s seen the show in one of its sit-down versions, the fizzing energy of the cast makes up for it, and other elements (Howard Hudson’s entrancing lighting, Andrzej Goulding’s video designs and Bill Sherman’s consistently enthralling orchestrations and arrangements) remain transporting. This is about as much fun as you can have in a theatre, and Sheppard crucially never loses sight of the humanity amongst the roving spotlights, confetti cannons, camp humour and bravura belting.

The lynchpin to that humanity, and indeed to the overall success of this edition of & Juliet, is a sensational performance from Lara Denning as Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway, whose efforts to rewrite her husband’s male-centric trajectory for our heroine exposes the fault lines in her own marriage. Denning has the inspired comic instincts of a true clown as Anne inserts herself into Juliet’s story as her hyper-supportive “yasss girl” best friend, but also conveys with piercing emotional clarity the hurt and rage of a wife sidelined by the ambitions and perceived indifference of the husband she adores. Vocally she is stunning, with a rich, rangy diva-esque belt of many colours, culminating in a shatteringly powerful second act version of the ballad ‘That’s The Way It Is’ that pretty much out-Dions Céline. This is a star turn, full of detail, craft and sheer charisma, that ought to catapult Ms Denning to the top of every casting directors list of multi-faceted musical leading ladies (producers of Death Becomes Her, which surely must be making West End plans, please take note).

As is appropriate for a show that trumpets female empowerment, the women really lead from the front here. Newcomer Geraldine Sacdalan’s Juliet is a hyperkinetic ball of charm, enthusiasm and love. Tiny but mighty, she reads as palpably younger than Miriam-Teak Lee originally, and feels like an actual teenager even more than Lorna Courtenay who premiered the role in North America. This Juliet is a beguiling fusion of can-do attitude, boundless but never obnoxious self-confidence and an irresistible generosity of spirit. She also has a tremendous voice, fearlessly and accurately attacking the role’s taxing demands. Sandra Marvin as the doting Nurse with a romantic past of her own is a weapons-grade delight: a hilarious, deeply lovable belter with a mega-watt smile as big as her heart, she’s just fabulous. 

Jordan Broatch finds real melancholy but also great humour and a core of steel in Juliet’s non-binary friend May and Kyle Cox makes the young Parisian aristocrat they fall for into an utterly adorable goofball, permanently in the grip of mindless apprehension until he recognises his authentic self. TV star Ranj Singh plays his imperious father and, while he lacks the virile authority of his predecessors David Bedella (London) and Paolo Szot (Broadway), he proves a surprisingly adept song and dance man, and has a terrific rapport with the divine Ms Marvin. Jay McGuiness, formerly of boyband The Wanted, is Shakespeare and, surprisingly given his pop background, turns out to be a better actor than singer, offering tentative vocals but capturing the youthful swagger and arrogance of the feted writer. He doesn’t as yet fully convey William’s distress when he realises how close he has come to losing his beloved Anne, but his performance is likely to grow as the tour continues. 

Seeing multiple casts take on these roles and bring their own strengths and hues is testament to the malleability of West Read’s writing and Sheppard’s vision: & Juliet feels a lot less ‘cookie cutter’ from company to company than many other long runners, and that’s a rare and beautiful thing. So too is the sheer joy and delight it elicits from paying customers. This remains a thunderous crowd pleaser, one that, for a couple of technicolored hours, makes the world seem like a brighter, kinder place, and right now that’s something we could all do with. The magic continues.