Theatre review: Bonnie & Clyde

It's a human peculiarity to take dead-eyed career criminals and turn them into heroes, celebrated by the very people whose money they've taken. But I'm not here to talk about the Jubilee parade, instead I bypassed the crowds and went to the Arts Theatre for Bonnie & Clyde, a musical I had to postpone when I got Covid in April. Frank Wildhorn (music,) Don Black (lyrics) and Ivan Menchell's (book) show flopped on Broadway but has developed a cult following since, and a concert version last year has now been developed into Nick Winston's production, its first full staging in London. During the Great Depression, West Dallas is a dead end its residents just want to get away from; Bonnie Parker (Frances Mayli McCann) dreams of becoming a famous film star, but a different kind of celebrity comes along when Clyde Barrow (understudy Barney Wilkinson) escapes from prison.

Convincing her to hide him, the two instantly fall for each other and plan to run away to New Mexico. But they're delayed because Clyde's brother Buck (George Maguire,) who was his partner in crime and in the prison break, has been convinced by his wife Blanche (understudy Lauren Jones) to turn himself in for a reduced sentence. Clyde on the other hand goes on another crime spree, and when he's finally caught faces abuse in prison. The first act sets up the central couple as the figures they're now remembered as: Bonnie helps Clyde escape again, and they tour America robbing shops before graduating to banks.

The story of musicals that tank on stage only for the soundtrack to gain them an enthusiastic fanbase has only become more common with streaming, and inevitably favours those shows with especially strong music. This proves to be the case with Bonnie & Clyde as well, the songs easily being the most reliably successful element of the show. It's a fairly eclectic mix of jazzy, folky, country influences that reflect the 1930s setting, although with the best songs all being ballads that does tend to slow down the action a lot, keeping the show from becoming the high-octane ride it aspires to be. Still, those ballads are very strong, with a particularly good stretch in Act I when "You Can Do Better Than Him" is followed by "You Love Who You Love" and "Raise a Little Hell" - though even the latter relies more on big rousing vocals than actually raising the tempo.

Menchell's book is where the musical most tends to fall down, with a lot of underexplored characters and ideas: Cleve September's Ted is a Sheriff's Deputy who's been in love with Bonnie since childhood, and theoretically gives us a link between the bandits and the law enforcement chasing them, but although he gets a couple of good musical moments his part never comes to anything. The show opens with the titular characters as children (Bea Ward, alternating with Aiya Agustin, Jersey Blu Georgia and Lineo Ncube. and Isaac Lancel Watkinson, alternating with Finn Barwell, Louie Gray and George Menezes Cutts,) and they sometimes return later to provide a conscience to their older selves when their crimes get darker. But they don't make a lot of sense as Jiminy Cricket figures because the whole point is neither Bonnie nor Clyde has really matured much beyond their childhood dreams of stardom and infamy, so there's not enough difference between the versions of them.

I did like the way the couple's notoriety turning into celebrity is touched on, through Ako Mitchell's preacher denouncing them and telling the people to look to god instead. As he seems to be the only character with a steady (legal) cashflow, you can see how the people reject him and, in the depths of the Depression, worship instead the people who did something to fight against the feeling of helplessness, however criminal. The show itself does feel a little bit too in thrall to the couple's legend though, focusing on the romance and accepting Clyde's excuses for his mounting body count. There's just enough hint of the grubby reality of what the couple might actually have been like, to make you notice that it's not being explored.

For all the flaws in the show itself it's hard to fault Winston's production. Philip Witcomb's designs add a dustiness that counteracts the writing's more romanticised treatment of the couple, and the set may be the most ambitious I've seen in this theatre, making the stage seem larger than I've ever seen it look before and lending an epic scope. If the songs are a bit over-reliant on the classic Broadway trope of hitting huge notes over more subtle emotional development, the cast, who throw everything into the show, are well up to the task. McCann gives Bonnie a real drive behind the naïve brightness that sees her follow a life of crime while still thinking she can be a movie star, and Wilkinson has a hint of brutality under Clyde's charm. The cast provide the necessary gusto, but the show never quite committing either to a dark take on notorious criminals, or to a full-on fast-paced adventure, means it's entertaining enough but never quite drew me in.

Bonnie & Clyde by Frank Wildhorn, Don Black and Ivan Menchell is booking until the 10th of July at the Arts Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: The Other Richard / Matt Ester.