Rehab The Musical - Review

Neon 194, London

****

Music & lyrics by Grant Black and Murray Lachlan Young

Book by Elliot Davis

Directed & choreographed by Gary Lloyd

Oscar Conlon-Morrey

After a premiere on London’s fringe in 2022, Rehab The Musical takes up a brief residence at Neon 194, a nightclub in the heart of the capital.

The show is brilliantly conceived. Drawn from the lived experiences of songwriters Grant Black and Murray Lachlan Young, the musical charts the breadths and depths of addiction, while also throwing a spotlight on the callous and manipulative nature of today’s celebrity culture and the vulnerability of individuals, both humble and famous.

The cast in 2022 were magnificent - here they’re even better with the show having to be one of the finest ensemble pieces around.

Keith Allen still leads as Malcolm Stone the vile (think Max Clifford) villain of the piece. Allen offers  a brilliantly fleshed out caricature that could hardly be played better by anyone else. Mica Paris joins the show as Martha, a rehab counsellor with her vocals proving fabulous in the second half’s Museum Of Loss. 

John Barr and Jodie Steele also return, Barr as tanning-salon addict Barry Bronze and Steele as Beth, Stone’s henchman with a twist and both perform at the top of their game.

Newcomer to the show Oscar Conlon-Morrey steps into the role of the deeply damaged Phil, a man with numerous flaws in his mental health. Conlon-Morrey is magnificent in this most complex of characters, enhanced by his majestic vocal work.

Driving the show’s narrative are Christian Maynard and Maiya Quansah-Breed, respectively Kid Pop, the celeb at the centre of the story and Lucy, the fragile young woman with a troubled past but a strong moral background. Quansah-Breed’s voice is sensational, with her portrayal the more credible of the two. Rebecca Thornhill delivers a modest but flawlessly performed cameo as former Bond-girl Jane. 

Combining humour with pathos, the show resonates with an authentic  message that’s drawn from the writers’ lives. There’s lyrical magic too, not least in the hauntingly beautiful Two Broken People.

Gary Lloyd again directs and choreographs with flair, but his choice of staging in the round is hampered by the venue’s flat performing space, with characters too often either being obscured from view or simply poorly lit. The show merits a West End run on a traditional proscenium stage - Neon194 does not do it justice.

The ingredients however remain for a smash hit production - Rehab The Musical offers a strong credible story, great songs and an outstanding cast.

Runs until 17th February

Photo credit: Mark Senior

From Here To Eternity

Shaftesbury Theatre, London

***

Lyrics by Tim Rice

Music by Stuart Brayson

Book by Bill Oakes

Director Tamara Harvey

A passionate wartime romance, a star studded cinema legacy and Tim Rice's lyrics all suggest a musical of grand ambition and spectacular promise. But whilst From Here To Eternity is welcomed as a new piece of musical theatre, as for so many shows or movies themed around Hawaii in that fateful 1941 winter, it proves to be heavy on Pacific promise but, like Soutra Gilmour's (effectively) minimalist set designs, light on artistic content. 

It's a grand canvas indeed that has a show climaxing with the USA being drawn into the second world war. Set around the American naval base at Pearl Harbour, we meet First Sergeant Warden, who is to fall for his womanizing Captain's wife Karen Holmes and Private Prewitt, a member of Warden’s company, who is to lose his heart to Island whore Lorene. Where one love interest is usually enough for most musicals, to be writing for a quartet of lovers is a potential distraction to both writer and audience. Rice's ambitions are noble, but his scope is just too broad to effectively support such romantic complexity.

The show is not helped through the star-casting of Darius Campbell as Warden. Chiselled looks and beautifully voiced for sure, he looks heroic but his acting lacks subtlety and depth and he fails to capture our belief. Robert Lonsdale's Prewitt is a performance that is West End worthy. His take on the song Fight The Fight is stirring and convincing as he grapples with his conscience over being required to fight in conflict. Two reprisals of any song is usually at least one too many and that this song re-appears so often, with other musical motifs returning throughout the evening, indicates that composer Stuart Brayson lacks the talent to match the scale of the show and the renowned wit of his lyricist.

The two lead women delight. Siubhan Harrison is Lorene, a character whose tough shell conceals a wise and tender heart and who inthe number Run Along Joe, gives two pleasing and well-crafted perspectives on the same song through its reprisals. It is Rebecca Thornhill as Karen Holmes who shines out amongst the cast. Her loveless marriage now worn threadbare through countless army flings, the poignancy of the love she craves with Warden is compelling. 

Harvey's direction and Javier De Frutos's choreography is sound throughout even if the constant carrying of metal beds on and off stage by the male ensemble intrudes at times, no more so than half way through the title song From Here To Eternity. The creative pair are at their best though with the routine for You Got The Money that becomes an exciting array of dance, lifts and beautifully timed rendezvous.

The story famously builds towards the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. A big event that in the West End demands effects that are state of the art. In an era of digital illusion and to audiences used to the best of CGI, the attack as presented here is a damp squib. If, on a fraction of this show’s budget the Southwark Playhouse managed to impressively sink the Titanic earlier this year, then it cannot have been beyond the wit of Rice and his co-producers to know that something spectacular was called for above and beyond the projections that we witness shone onto the Shaftesbury stage. 

Notwithstanding a closing nod to the human cost of war that is both respectful and moving, From Here To Eternity is much like the US Pacific Fleet, ill-fated and unlikely to remain afloat for long.

Now booking into 2014