![]() There’s far more plot you’ll see for yourself, including revenants commenting on the action! They’re funnier this time too, sharper, wittier, more present. We get a tender duet here, ‘Lifeboat’, and later after Martha too tries the same thing, a reconciling one with her and Veronica too in a reprise of ‘Seventeen’ at the end. ![]() Veronica saves Macnamara who’s been even more exploited by head Ms Fleming (Katie Paine, with a superb solo) on televising teen suicide issues. The second act snatches at a redemptive arc. There’s more drama, more consequences courtesy of JD. Heather Macnamara (Billie Bowman) lures Veronica to a field where those two bullies are waiting. Then something we might wonder at now post-#MeToo. JD accompanies Veronica on a reconciliatory visit to dominant Heather Chandler, mix a trick cocktail each (JD as a joke), but Veronica presents JD’s by mistake. But after the lovers unite in a raunchy ‘yes, yes’ (‘Our Love is God’) the storyline darkens. Veronica baulks at the latest cruelty on Martha, and at a party admits she wrote a fake note on Martha’s kindergarten crush Ram, tells everyone it’s over. Maybe JD learns more than he knows from his psychotic father, demolition specialist Big Bud (first of the excellent Conor McFarlane’s roles) who unwittingly blew up his wife when she decided she’d had enough and climbed into a condemned building to wave goodbye to JD then aged ten. Veronica now attracts cute newbie Jason JD Dean (Jacob Fowler) Baudelaire-in-hand who upbraids her self-betrayal as insouciantly as he dispatches bullies Kurt Kelly and Ram Sweeney (Alex Woodard, Morgan Jackson, a superb double-act who shine way beyond their Rocky six-packs) who try beating him up as gay and lie sprawling in agony for their trouble. Smart Veronica, desperate to escape this, forges papers for the three dominant rich Heathers (Chandler, Duke, McNamara) and is taken up as factotum, given a makeover that pushes her away from big bestie Martha Dunnstock (Kingsley Morton) whose gentle ‘I get it, you’re with the Heathers now’ isn’t the only warning. Westerburg High School’s true name is School for Bullies. Heathers’ plot still unfolds in an ample two hours thirty-five including interval! The challenge lies in how to mine the dark and not gloss it. There’s minor plot tweaks but these work well, simplifying the constraints of a musical. Of course there’s always Buffy the Vampire Slayer. If you know the film (a critically-acclaimed flop turned cult) you’ll see how it’s squeezed into the very genre Waters intended to rip up: the feelgood coming-of-age high-school graduation musical. We’ve seen Ben Cracknell produce exceptional work but he surpasses himself here, with different-hued directionals for each of the colour-coded Heathers. New musical director Will Joy adds a delicacy missing last time.ĭirector Andy Fickman cracks the pace, Gary Lloyd (also Associate Director) produces spot-sharp choreography and the cast are exceptional including lead Jenna Innes (Veronica Sawyer) and Elisa Bowden’s Heather Chandler.ĭavid Shields’ smoky school-building set features cutaways, gallery, props, dry ice, moody skies between windows and a kiosk for most elsewheres, twinned with stunning spot-lighting. The lyrics when you can hear them are really fine, but the music’s not period-quoting: you get that from soundtracks before the curtain-up on the two acts. Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe still answer with a previously uber-loud 2014 rock comedy, can-belto numbers with superb orchestration now less drowned from under the stage. If you don’t know it, that’ll furnish a clue. So how turn Daniel Waters’ acclaimed 1989 teen black comedy into a musical? He wanted Stanley Kubrick to direct it, Dr Strangelove style. But there’s doubters who’ll have their heads turned. Heathers is brighter, lighter, funnier, altogether more pin-sharp than last time here in October 2021 – which seemed a bit like an expense of teen spirit. Arrangements and Orchestration Laurence O’Keefe and Ben Green. ![]() Director Alan Fickman, Choreography and Associate Director Gary Lloyd, Designer David shields, Lighting Designer Ben Cracknell, Sound Designer Dan Samson, Musical Director Will Joy. Rethought, rejigged, bright with humour and shadowed with plangency, this is the Heathers we’re meant to haveīook, Music and Lyrics by Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe based on the film by Daniel Waters.
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