‘Bonnie and Clyde’ review
‘a heart-rendering reminder of why musical theatre continues to be so beloved.‘
TDTC’s Bonnie and Clyde is more than just a rollercoaster of entertainment, and believe me, it is a rollercoaster – I laughed; I audibly gasped; I cried. It is also, thanks to the boatloads of empathy directed by the brilliant duo of Emilia Lewis and Dylan Jimenez-Morales, a show that aches with raw humanity. Yet somehow it still reaches beyond that, because of a cast who deliver each line with truth, and hold so much feeling in the depths of their voices. They depict the human struggle of law enforcers; criminals; the devoutly religious; rebellious lovers; and the angry men and the women caught up in their chaos. This show is a profoundly complex depiction of injustice, tragedy, and romance that never flinches from the truths it holds.
The leading duo are sensational. Harry Allderidge’s Clyde and Charlotte Dixon’s Bonnie manage to win and lose the audience’s sympathy time and time again, displaying immense skill in balancing deluded charisma with real heartfelt emotion. One minute Allderidge fires off lines with a cool charm; then he holds that charm but still channels genuinely nasty menace in his eyes when committing a hold-up; then Allderidge delivers a monologue about the police suspicion he faced since childhood with a naturalistic honesty, that cuts through the more stylistic musical elements and elevates the whole play’s thematic resonance. This ability to simultaneously depict Clyde as a dashing hero, a genuinely cruel criminal, and a real victim of police oppression characterises the sheer maturity of this production.
Dixon is equally brilliant. So many of the cast possess beautifully supported belts whilst deploying their southern twang to enrich their vocal tone with genuine yearning, including Allderidge and Dixon. Dixon takes this to another level, when, just as you begin to lose sympathy with the brilliantly manic affection for Clyde she conjures up later in the play, Dixon sings ‘Dying’ Ain’t so Bad’, with such a tender loving truth that no one who has ever gone to destructive places for love will be able to leave the theatre with a dry eye. Dixon exhibits the strong presence and tender innocence it takes to craft such a compelling depiction of hopeless love.
The rest of the cast is equally brilliant. Connie Richardson’s Blanche is both hilarious when throwing her arms around as a quick firing ball of irritation, and heartbreaking when the slight raspy tenderness she adds to her vocal tone reflects the sincerity she grants Blanche’s love for Clyde’s brother Buck, played with forceful grit and brilliant comic timing by Jobe Hart. Harry Threapleton plays Ted, a law enforcement officer who yearns for Bonnie, combining stilted body language with forceful feeling in his eyes. He depicts both the lifelessness of Ted’s procedural nature and the sincerity of his principles so well. The equanimity of hope and sadness evoked watching Bonnie reunite with Clyde in prison as Ted sits solemnly in the silence reflects the brilliant way Lewis and Jimenez-Morales constantly stage simultaneous yet contrasting events. I went to the theatre expecting a fun romp, excited by the brilliantly moody promotion crafted by Producers Emily Power, Luke Mallon and Assistant Producer Olivia Higgins Darby. It was undoubtedly that, but Lewis and Jimenez-Morales constantly interweave these contrasts to create a thematically rich masterpiece.
Another contrast is the constant interjections of Midun Odunaiya’s Preacher, and the religious choir during moments of criminality. Odunaiya has a bold presence as a performer and moves with a quiet dignity whilst sustaining a beautiful weight to his vocality that honour the sensitive depiction of religion that Richardson’s Blanche also embodies. He reflects the technical brilliance of the whole production.
In all honesty, the production has moments of technical roughness around the edges, but there is so much beauty in the individual elements that no one can deny the technical brilliance. My favourite moment that exemplifies this is at the beginning, when a picnic between Bonnie and Clyde, which I initially thought was staged slightly awkwardly, transforms as the ensemble rushes in. Beautiful blue stereoscopic lighting creates contrasts with Blanche’s pink dress and Dixon’s mezzo-soprano tone swells with love over the band’s strident strings, forceful percussion and melancholic woodwind ensemble. It is the kind of rush of feeling that reminds us all why we can sustain sympathy for a girl who falls head over heels for a murderer, even when the play doesn’t flinch from the brutality of his actions. It is created by the brilliance of all the technical departments: a sharp ensemble cast, for which Meg Shorey, Emma Caskey, and Charlotte Field should be commended; brilliant music direction by Michael Nevin; incredible lighting overseen by Production Manager Anna Brzezinkl (assisted by Jonathan Wilson-Downs); and the faultlessly charming choreography by Charlie Holliday (assisted by Lucy Paget and Freya Rodgers) that perfectly contrasts the brutalist set.
Indeed, the only real crime committed by this play is that Hannah Sheppard, who is a stand-out member of the ensemble, playing a laugh-out-loud funny bank teller with immense wit, doesn’t have a solo song to highlight the astute charisma and heartbreaking humanity she injects into the part of Bonnie’s mum. Everything else is a heart-rendering reminder of why musical theatre continues to be so beloved.
By Laurence Davidson.