Theatre Review: Heathers the Musical
(AD – event invite*) Dear Diary. Tonight I visited the Alex Theatre in Birmingham for the Press Night performance of Heathers the Musical. How very.
Trigger Warning. Actually it would be quicker to name the difficult subjects that AREN’T covered in Heathers the Musical. Light and fluffy it is not, despite being masked in primary colours. This is not a high school musical where boy meets girl, they face a few challenges and then it’s happy ever after. You’re lucky if you come out of a semester at Westerberg High unscathed. Or alive.
Step into my candy store
Based on the 1989 movie starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, this dark teen comedy has been adapted for the stage by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy, and it’s already gained a cult following. The titular Heathers are top dogs at Westerberg; desperate to be part of the in-crowd is Veronica Sawyer. She’s naïve, preppy and sensible, but the lure of being popular is too much. And in a highly improbable character arc, she gets something of a taste for violence and revenge, thanks to dark and brooding new guy JD.
Rebecca Wickes owns the character of Veronica, with impeccable comic timing, although her irresistible pull towards Simon Gordon as JD feels somewhat lacking. The entire cast – some performing dual roles – work incredibly hard with tireless energy, but special mentions do need to go the wonderfully acid-tongued performance of Maddison Firth as the alpha Heather, Heather Chandler, and to Rory Phelan and Liam Doyle as the highly unlikeable but hilarious jock duo Ram and Kurt.
Opening number Beautiful sets the scene at Westerberg as Veronica takes us through the tribes and cliques of an American high school. We watch as she becomes more and more disillusioned with the social pressures to fit in, and the well choreographed Dead Girl Walking has her turning her back on the Heathers, only to fall under the spell of someone even more dangerous. Seventeen, I Say No and Lifeboat are also strong numbers. My Dead Gay Son, the first number of Act 2, also has the appreciative crowd whooping by the end.
It was also the first time I’ve seen the orchestra pit utilised at the Alex for a while, and it’s always wonderful to see. As with Everybody’s Talking About Jamie last week though, occasionally the music overshadowed the vocals.
Can’t we be seventeen? Is that so hard to do?
The set is simple, turning easily from high school to teenage bedroom to 7/11 to…. a cow-pat filled field? Each Heather has their own bold colour and this is reflected in the clever colour coded lighting design. The choreography is simple, with great use of slow motion and freeze-frame in the first number. The cast aren’t afraid to occasionally break the fourth wall either, including the audience in their plans. A special shout-out to “Steve”.
The content is often near-the-knuckle, and is designed to make the audience uncomfortably titter with disbelief – did they really go there? Difficult subjects are dealt with very lightly; issues such as bulimia, date rape, bullying, school shootings and teen suicide are almost trivialised. But this could be more of a reflection of the period in which it is set, when there wasn’t such a spotlight on teenage mental health.
It’s not for the faint-hearted, but the script with its punchy one-liners is raucous and shockingly funny.
Heathers the Musical plays at Birmingham’s Alexandra Theatre until Saturday 25th September. You can buy your tickets online here, or contact the Box Office on 0844 871 3011. The UK Tour continues until December 2021.
Photo Credits: Pamela Raith Photography.
