Bonnie & Clyde - The Musical

A stand-out characteristic of the Wilburton Theatre Group is its enthusiasm for taking chances on musicals that are lesser-known outside London and Donmar Theatre audience circles. It’s exciting for community theatre audiences to have the opportunity to be taken beyond ‘the usual suspects’ for entertainment; it’s equally exciting for performers to get to know and bring to life characters who will be new acquaintances to most. 

WTG and director Emily Starr are to be warmly applauded for daring to explore rich new turf, and with their latest production, Bonnie & Clyde – The Musical, they continue their tradition of staging quality and quirky, lesser-known musicals such as The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and 2016’s Big Fish. 

Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker came to prominence in Texas and surrounding states during the 1930s Depression era as gun-slinging bank robbers who became headline-grabbing folk heroes for unashamedly taking what they wanted and getting away with their take in a speeding car, generally without blood being shed. However, when two policemen wound up dead at their hands, they became top public enemies, and were subsequently ambushed and shot by law officers. 

At the musical opens, we see the fruits of Bonnie and Clyde’s exploits – their faces bloodied, they lie dead and bullet-riddled in the front seat of their car. Almost immediately, their childhood selves are introduced, revealing through song their ambitions for escaping the anonymity and grinding poverty of their young lives when they become adults. We meet their families, and see them grow up – Bonnie becoming a waitress and waiting for excitement, which she encounters when she meets the dangerously charming but hot-tempered Clyde.

Clyde has a brother Buck who is also drawn to making a fast buck illegally but can sometimes be persuaded to behave by his God-fearing hairdresser wife Blanche. However, eventually, the paths of the two couples are joined on the trail to no-good, with Buck shot and killed by law officers and Blanche arrested before Bonnie and Clyde ultimately meet their maker. 

‘Drive’ is a word that came to mind a lot with this show – from script to the production itself. Ambition, passion, speeding cars – all fuel the action of this story, tempered of course with some ‘rest stops’; we must feel like that we the audience are being relentlessly pulled along with as Bonnie, Clyde, Buck and Blanche to their fates and the climax. The narrative of this script is at points a bit flabby, and the action sometimes needed greater energy on the part of the performers to give it the necessary ‘drive he said’ forward motion.

Musically, Bonnie & Clyde is a little gem, peppered with memorable country, rockabilly, Gospel, blues and bluegrass tunes in which WTG invested no-holds barred, guns-blazing excitement and fervour. Numbers like “Raise A Little Hell” and “You Love Who You Love” gave rise to the hairs on the back of your neck, and the vocal (singing) performances in this production were pretty stunning overall, gloriously capturing the demands of the various styles, with the Devil’s Back Porch Band as cracking sidekicks.

As Young Bonnie, Jessica Seetharaman had the unenviable task of kicking off the show’s action and setting the scene after the curtain opens to the very dead Bonnie and Clyde. To this young performer’s credit, she launched it in dazzling style with a smiling, but feral and unblinking ferocity that left no question about her drive to become a ‘somebody’ in life. 

Matching her for ferocity and adding a heavy dose of sleazy charm that could turn instantly into hot-tempered bad humour was Joe Dickens as the adult Clyde Barrow in an edgy, powerhouse performance that took no prisoners. In the tragi-comic role of Clyde’s sister-in-law Blanche was an alternately tender and bossy Caroline Watson, offering a bigger-than-life rendition of this highly sympathetic character to winning effect. 

As adult Bonnie, Amy Roberts’ sung performance was lovely, with faultless vocals – beautiful voice. However, her indolent characterisation of the ambitious ‘ravishing redhead’ was at odds with the naked and predatory hunger exposed by her younger self at the very start.  Even Bonnie’s legendarily consuming passion for Clyde seemed all-too casual here to drive their doomed affair. 

Jacob Nightingale also sang well in the difficult role of Buck, Clyde’s childlike brother, ironically nicknamed “Daddy” by his wife Blanche, with a particular highlight his “Raise A Little Hell” duet with Clyde.

Effective supporting performances were delivered by Samantha Gallop as Bonnie’s mother, the reliable Tim Meikle as the Preacher and multiple-role players Richard Dodd and Peter Crussell. Special note must be given to the very young Aidan Meikle for his intense and focused front-of-line performance in the dance numbers.  

Another stand-out characteristic of WTG is their imaginative staging, and set pieces including a (half) car and jail door again did them proud. Graphic ‘violence’ make-up by Bryannie Quarrie worked well.

A couple of closing thoughts: casting is always a challenge (and becoming increasingly so), with the aim always to have ‘the’ or ‘a’ right person in a given role.  Sometimes ‘the’ right person isn’t right in a particular pairing. While each of the four main players brought individual strong suits to give their performances, both couples seemed mismatched and performing in different productions of the same show. In conjunction with that theme, chemistry is difficult to create out of nowhere. Actions such as kissing can suggest intimacy, but frequent bouts of kissing without the chemistry – or knowing how to fake it -- is uncomfortable to watch and the opposite of sexy. 

And finally: again, kudos to Emily Starr and WTG for taking on a quality, lesser-known musical that deserves to be performed. With Bonnie & Clyde – The Musical, Starr has imaginatively brought together a collection of winning elements and created a production that showcased exciting talent and technical prowess.

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