Theatre review: & Juliet

Given the amount of terrible shows I've seen over the years when the signs really should have been there, regular readers of this blog might both have surmised that FOMO has a certain amount of influence on what theatre I book. So an expensive West End show that, despite a cast and creatives I like, I don't feel compelled to spend money on, comes as a bit of a relief. The idea of a jukebox musical of the songs of Max Martin - songwriter for a seemingly endless list of artists that includes the Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, Broccoli Spears, P!nk and Bon Jovi - built around an alternate ending for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet seemed perfectly skippable when it premiered last year. Except, proving that my instincts can be an absolute disaster in what I avoid as well as what I see, David West Read's & Juliet got rave reviews both from offical critics and, more importantly, theatre Twitter, and started to sound very much like my kind of thing.

A few months later, and with a spare night on a week off I finally got round to visiting the Shaftesbury - as it happens, just as the show's Canadian premiere is announced. And well into the run, with understudies on for both leading ladies, it doesn't disappoint, offering daft, inclusive fun.

Shakespeare (Oliver Tompsett) is about to premiere Romeo and Juliet when his wife Anne Hathaway (Kirstie Skivington) objects to the bleak ending. She takes over writing duties, deciding that instead of killing herself Juliet (Grace Mouat) should flee her controlling parents and travel the world. Or at least as far as Paris, where she once again gets caught up in a hasty marriage, when engagement to Francois (Tim Mahendran) seems the only way to stop herself getting sent to a convent, and him to the army. But with neither of them particularly bothered about each other, and the Shakespeares trying to trip up each other's plot ideas, shenanigans naturally ensue. Especially when Shakespeare resurrects the dead Romeo (Jordan Luke Gage,) who turns out to be a gibbering narcissist whose list of former lovers isn't quite restricted to Rosaline.

West Read's script definitely leans into a panto sensibility for its humour, with an endless collection of barely-over-the-kids'-heads smutty puns ("It was the nightingale, and not the lark!" "Oh I know Gail. A lot of men spent a night in Gail.") plus David Bedella's Lance as the only character not to get the memo that they weren't doing silly accents, and an entire storyline that's largely there for a punchline about Justin Timberlake's meme-spawning pronunciation of "It's Gonna Be Me." But most of the comedy comes from how and where the famous songs show up - this is definitely of the Mamma Mia / Bat of out Hell school of jukebox musicals where crowbarring songs into a narrative is an opportunity for an arch wink at the audience, rather than the Viva Forever school where it's a harrowing ordeal largely featuring songs even Mel C doesn't remember recording. So Shakespeare and Hathaway argue over whose version of the ending to use with "I Want It That Way" and Juliet responds to accidentally getting engaged again with "Oops!... I Did It Again." This is a show so tongue-in-cheek about being a jukebox musical that an actual jukebox is a centrepiece of the set.

Not that Luke Sheppard's production can't turn the music to more dramatic use, like Melanie La Barrie's Nurse getting an impassioned moment with Juliet for "Fuckin' Perfect," while "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" gets an unlikely reinvention as a gender non-binary anthem for Juliet's friend May (Arun Blair-Mangat.) And there's an undeniable empowering feminist message underlying it all as both male and female writer have to step aside and let Juliet figure out her own story. But with Soutra Gilmour and Paloma Young's sets and costumes respectively echoing the camp, colourful publicity this is a brash, ridiculous show that's ridiculous fun - and with the next few months offering up at least three major Romeo and Juliets in London (the jury's still out on how many I'll put myself through,) I imagine there'll be plenty of moments where I'll be wishing Juliet would just get up and launch into "Roar."

& Juliet by Max Martin, David West Read, Brian Littrell, Kristian Lundin, Andreas Carlsson, Herbie Crichlow, Jessica Cornish, Lukasz Gottwald, Claude Kelly, Henry Walter, Robyn, Kesha Sebert, Klas Åhlund, Allan Grigg, Benjamin Levin, Your Mum, Rami Yacoub, Dido Armstrong, Demi Lovato, Ilya Salmanzadeh, Savan Kotecha, Katy Perry, Bonnie McKee, Anton Zaslavski, Cathy Dennis, Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Ali Payami, Tove Nilsson, Alecia Moore, Johan Schuster, Oscar Holter, Amethyst Kelly, Ariana Grande, Abel Tesfaye, Peter Svensson, Denniz PoP, Lisa Miskovsky and Justin Timberlake, based on Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, is booking until the 3rd of October at the Shaftesbury Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.