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REVIEW | & Juliet - The Musical, UK and Ireland Tour - Sheffield Lyceum Theatre
- Harry Brogan
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
AD | Tickets gifted in exchange of an honest review
Take one of William Shakespeare's famous works and turn it into a Jukebox musical full of songs from well known pop hits...well that is what & Juliet has to offer. Currently on its first-ever UK and Ireland tour the multi-award winning West End and Broadway musical, which first premiered in Manchester in 2019 before transferring to the West End, comes to the Sheffield Lyceum for two weeks only.
& Juliet takes the famous play Romeo and Juliet and re-writes the famous death and asks the question of what if Juliet didn't die and begins a life as she wants to live it. The show brings hit after hit written by Max Martin with songs made famous by the likes of Jessie J, Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, Britney Spears and more, this jukebox musical's numbers are endless.
Written by David West Read, directed by Luke Sheppard, and choreographed by Jennifer Weber this favourite to many delivers on many levels, but sometimes making me feel unsure.
The book written by David West Read, Read writes what is an enjoyable 2 and a half hour show. Read writes themes such as self discovery, female empowerment and identity well and are clear throughout the show. Read also writes an upbeat tone with good comedy, with the jokes about other Shakespeare plays and more of the adult jokes being amusing and do get the laughs. While Read writes a good upbeat tone, Read also does writes nice heart-warming moments between the characters May (Jordan Broatch) and François (Kyle Cox) which is nice to see play out on stage. Read's pacey book quickly gets the story going right from the start, with at times the dialogue being directed to us as an audience to get us engaged. While Read's book doesn't have tons of dialogue to it, as with majority of the time the dialogue gets interjected by one of the shows many well known pop hits numbers that yes, carries the plot along, but with the dialogue there is, its pleasing and enjoyable, with it being light hearted but at the same time being occasionally sincere in both acts. The show at times plays on Shakespearian language, being witty and entertaining throughout, personally the show does shift and leans towards more of a slightly heartfelt tone in act 2 yet still keeping its bright feel as well.
For someone who has seen the show twice before Manchester (2019) and London (2020 - pre lockdown) there's noticeable changes within the characters such as the removal of the character Lord Capulet and a few of the ensemble player characters have been removed too. But this doesn't effect the overall delivery of the show. Read writes likeable funny characters such as Angeliqué (Sandra Marvin) and Lance who at this performance was played by Michael Nelson, both characters get the audience laughing and loving the characters. Read also writes determined characters such as Juliet (Gerardine Sacdalan) and Anne Hathaway (Lara Denning) that the audience root for. David West Read writes what is overall a joyous show taking a known work and adapting and creating what is a capable modern musical.
With the show being a jukebox musical for those who don't know what this means, it is when a show uses songs from already known artists to tell the story. & Juliet uses music by Swedish songwriter Max Martin who has written songs for the likes of Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Adam Lambert and more. The show contains 29 songs made famous by pop sensations with numbers including Can't Stop the Feeling, Larger Than Life, I Kissed A Girl and BLOW, some of the songs are mashed together such as Teenage Dream / Break Free, which delivers fun organised chaos, and Problem / Can't Feel My Face creating what is an energetic mash-up performed by Romeo (Benjamin Jackson Walker), Juliet (Gerardine Sacdalan) and the Ensemble in act 2. While the show contains well known hits the only original song written for the show is the duet One More Try, it is a sweet song that pulls on the relationship between the characters Romeo and Juliet.
To me this production of & Juliet gave different musical arrangements which sound like they had a slight change to them from what you can hear on the cast recordings and the original West End production. With a switch in its orchestrations, by musical arranger Bill Sherman, though it is funny to hear radio hits get their musical theatre transformation in the first place, in this show it works and it still keeps the feel of its original form but adding orchestra instruments which brings a new sound to your favourites. Overall the audience seemed to love the variety of generational hits especially the number Everybody performed by De Bois Band and what I would say is the shows most loved song Roar, it is hit after hit after hit, that will make you want to sing and dance along (but please don't).
Directed by Luke Sheppard, Sheppard creates great direction with delivering on clear clever moments of who's rewriting between Shakespeare (Jay McGuiness) and Anne Hathaway (Lara Denning), with some of these moments being heartfelt too, though Sheppard creates slight tenseness at time between the two characters. Sheppard also directs warming moments between May and François (Broatch and Cox), who both play these moments well. Sheppard also creates a likeable supportive friendship between Juliet and May (Broatch and Sacdalan) with the same likeableness is matched with the different relationship that Angeliqué and Anne (Marvin and Denning) has with Juliet. There's not just likeableness here there is also comedic direction between Lance (Michael Nelson) and Angeliqué (Sandra Marvin) which is humourous to watch.
While the show played at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London and currently playing at the Stephen Sondheim theatre on Broadway, the spacing from theatre to theatre on tour varies with the removal of a lift able turntable, and set pieces coming up from below the stage, some of the transitions personally felt somewhat a little less swifter than they could of been though doesn't have too much of a major impact. Sheppard gets the energy going from the get go by the Ensembles pre-show interactions with the audience it's a nice touch to what is already going to be a fun show. Overall the show is nicely directed by Luke Sheppard.
While the shows material lands with brilliance, unfortunately some of the performances on the night personally didn't quite land with me fully, with certain vocal choices feeling excessive and acting choices falling short and resulting in me unfortunately not getting fully on board with the character resulting in a differing performance from other performances on stage, it's a shame to say that not all the performances weren't 100% there for me.
While this is the case for some performances there are some great ones, Sandra Marvin (Angeliqué) brings laughs when on stage with Michael Nelson (Lance) and Marvin bringing love ability to the role with a caring nature for Juliet (Sacdalan) Marvin displays beautiful vocals and excellent characterisation throughout.
Lara Denning as Anne delivers a terrific performance, with Denning stunning the audience with powerful vocals during That's The Way It Is and giving an energetic and comedic performance too. Denning makes the audience like Anne from the start with excellent delivery on the humorous one liners towards other characters, while also greatly presenting the shows deeper dialogue. Denning is excellent.
Jennifer Weber's lively choreography is awesome to watch and is executed well by all the cast.
& Juliet is a Jukebox musical for many ages as it was shown in the audience and while its proven popular since premiering in Manchester with now having multiple productions across the world, audiences gave applause after applause and also cheered at times after ending of the numbers. While some of the performances for me weren't there, & Juliet cleverly incorporates your favourite songs into the story, creating an uplifting Jukebox musical.
★★★.5
& Juliet Plays at the Sheffield Lyceum until Saturday 31st of May, before continuing its UK and Ireland tour until 28th of June.
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