Steven Cheslik-deMeyer, Tim Maner and Alan Stevens Hewitt's musical
Lizzie premiered in 2009, but hasn't had a full UK production before. The Hope Mill's touring production, which lands at Southwark Playhouse Elephant, makes a pretty strong case for why there was no rush. A rock musical about notorious American axe-murderer Lizzie Borden (she was actually acquitted, but that's not really the part anyone remembers, and this version of her story assumes her guilt,) it's a strange, monotonous misfire that puts women centre-stage to reclaim their story (if it didn't long predate
SIX it would seem like an obvious rip-off; of course that one has some actual female creatives...) The musical style is a kind of punky rock, although the vocal style is very much traditional American musical theatre, in the sense that any note not belted at the top of the actors' lungs is considered a note wasted.
