Wild Rose - Review

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

*****

Book by Nicole Taylor

Directed by John Tiffany

Dawn Sievewright and the company of Wild Rose

In much the same way as the movie Local Hero was Bill Forsyth’s 1983 love letter to the Scottish highlands, so has Wild Rose become Nicole Taylor's glorious celebration of Glasgow. Drawn from the 2018 movie as with Forsyth, Taylor has woven into her narrative an ingeniously plausible connection to the USA.

The story's Rose-Lynn Harlan is a young Glaswegian whom we meet as she is being paroled from jail (think John Belushi's Jake in The Blues Brothers opening scene, just with a different musical angle).  A single mum of two pre-teens, and from one of the city’s toughest tower blocks, hers has not been an easy life. But Taylor, in projecting her own love for country music onto her leading lady, has endowed Rose-Lynn with a passion for country that drives the show.

Dawn Sievewright is Rose-Lynn in what must surely be one of the finest musical theatre role creations to premiere in the UK this year. Sievewright not only possesses the pipes to take the roof off the Royal Lyceum when needed but more than that, she takes us on Rose-Lynn’s journey (no spoilers here) that acutely address her feelings of inadequacy as a young mum and the contrast she witnesses (in her job as a cleaner or “daily woman”) between the well-off and the poor. Sievewright’s singing and acting are exquisite – but it is credit to Taylor who wields her pen like a scalpel, depicting deep human pain with just a perfectly placed word or phrase. With so many musical theatre writers falling back on lazy exposition and a dictionary of rhymes, the budding librettists and lyricists of today would do well to study Taylor's masterclass of a script. John Tiffany’s gifted direction only enhances the evening. 

The show is a carefully curated country collection, all delivered impeccably and with Taylor's choices ranging from Country Girl through to Peace In This House and Glasgow (No Place Like Home) she rollercoasters her audience through the full range of emotions. Notably supporting Sievewright are Blythe Duff as Marion, her mother, Janet Kumah as Susannah, the client for whom Rose-Lynn cleans and on the night of this review Alfie Campbell and Lily Ferguson, the two young actors playing her son and daughter.

Music is essential to the strength of this show and Ali Roocroft’s eight-piece band (including seven(!) strings players) add a superb enhancement to the evening’s country credentials.

Built around three chords and the truth, Wild Rose is new musical theatre at its finest. Amidst its raw and rough colloquial Scots brogue (more inspired writing from Taylor), there is a diamond of a show that deserves to be cut, polished and mounted in the West End. Soon!

Runs until 19th April

Photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic