Thelma & Louise: A New Musical – Young Vic

4/5 stars

Thelma & Louise: A New Musical is making its world premiere at the Young Vic, and I’m sure you’re probably thinking exactly what I was thinking: do we really need another screen-to-stage musical adaptation?

Because, let’s face it, we’ve had a lot of them.

Dirty Dancing, Ghost, The Devil Wears Prada, Heathers, Mean Girls, Back to the Future, Trainspotting, Mrs Doubtfire, Beetlejuice, Paddington… the list goes on. Turning a well-known film into a musical has become something of an industry in itself.

So the prospect of another one was, if anything, slightly underwhelming. And Thelma & Louise presents an additional problem: it’s a road movie.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the 1991 film, Thelma & Louise follows two friends who set off for a weekend away from their fairly unfulfilling lives. Thelma is trapped in an unhappy and controlling marriage, while Louise is more independent but carries her own scars from the past.

Their weekend takes a devastating turn when Louise shoots a man who sexually assaults Thelma. Believing the authorities are unlikely to accept their version of events, the pair go on the run, beginning a journey across America that gradually transforms into something much bigger: an escape from the lives, expectations and people that have controlled them. What begins as a weekend road trip becomes a story about friendship, freedom, consequences and two people discovering what it feels like to take control of their own lives.

More than 30 years after the film starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, original screenwriter Callie Khouri has returned to her story and written the book for this new musical. Singer-songwriter Neko Case provides the music and lyrics, with Trip Cullman directing and Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber responsible for the choreography.

Almost immediately, the production made me forget some of m initial reservations. From the moment the music started, I was transported to the American Deep South. There’s country music, line dancing and a roadside honky-tonk atmosphere that feels somewhere between Texas, Louisiana and Alabama. The choreography spills through the space and gives the opening a wonderfully immersive quality. It genuinely made me want to book a holiday to the southern United States, which probably wasn’t the intended outcome, but there we are.

And then the songs and singing started. In fairness, they’re pretty good.

Are they revolutionary? No.

Did I leave the theatre singing them? Not really.

But they are enjoyable and, more importantly, they don’t all merge into one another. Each has its own melody, mood and purpose. They feel like part of the storytelling rather than songs that have been inserted simply because somebody remembered they were making a musical. That makes a huge difference.

At the centre of everything are Rachel Tucker as Louise and Amy Lennox as Thelma, and both are superb. I’ve seen Tucker in many productions over the years, and once again her voice is extraordinary. But this isn’t simply an opportunity for powerhouse vocals. Tucker gives Louise a toughness that gradually reveals something much more vulnerable underneath.

Amy Lennox is every bit as charismatic as Thelma. She captures the character’s evolution from someone living within the confines of an unhappy controlling marriage into someone discovering what freedom might actually feel like.

Crucially, Tucker and Lennox convince you of the friendship between these two people. Without that relationship, the entire story falls apart.

Around them is an excellent supporting company. Trevor Dion Nicholas is particularly good as Hal, the detective pursuing the pair while increasingly understanding that what has happened isn’t quite as simple as the police investigation might suggest.

And then there is Jordan Luke Gage as JD. Gage has been making quite a name for himself in musical theatre recently and he’s ridiculously charismatic here. His JD is charming enough that you completely understand why Thelma falls for him while still leaving just enough unease underneath.

But the biggest challenge for this production was always going to be the car.

You cannot really do Thelma & Louise without creating a sense that these two people are travelling across America.

For most of the production, they solve that problem rather cleverly. Rather than attempting to squeeze a realistic car onto the Young Vic stage, strips of light race across the space, creating the impression of highways, movement and passing traffic. It’s simple, but surprisingly effective.

As their journey moves further into the desert, the physical environment changes too. At one point sand is spread across the stage, transforming what had previously felt like an interior space into something much more open and exposed.

Again, very simple. Very effective.

Although my mind did wander slightly to who has the uneviable job of vacuum all that up every night? But I digress.

There is, however, one moment where the stripped-back approach didn’t work for me, and unfortunately it’s probably the most famous moment in the entire story.

So, spoiler warning — although the film came out in 1991, so you’ve all had 35 years to watch it.

The ending.

In the film, Thelma and Louise make that final decision together and drive towards the Grand Canyon. It’s one of the most recognisable endings in cinema.

Here, the back of the stage opens to reveal the canyon, which is visually striking, but Thelma and Louise essentially stand together at the front of the stage holding hands.

And it just didn’t quite land for me.

It gave me slightly similar feelings to Jamie Lloyd’s Romeo & Juliet, where the famous balcony scene was stripped back and played at the front of the stage. I understand the theatrical argument for minimalism, but sometimes the physical image is an important part of the storytelling. I overheard someone leaving the theatre asking, “I thought they were in a car at the end and drove off a cliff?”

They were. They do, but if you didn’t already know the film, I’m not entirely convinced this production makes that moment clear enough. Perhaps that is something that could develop if the musical has a future life on a larger stage. The reveal of the canyon creates the perfect opportunity for some representation of the car — it doesn’t necessarily need to be completely realistic — but I think it would give that final moment significantly more emotional impact.

Because this production deserves that impact.

Underneath the road trip, country music and humour, Thelma & Louise remains a surprisingly complex story. At its heart, it’s about two people who have spent years being controlled, diminished and hurt, and what happens when they finally decide that enough is enough. There’s something exhilarating about watching Thelma and Louise begin to live on their own terms, but the tragedy is that by the time they truly take ownership of their lives, the choices available to them are disappearing.

And that’s what makes the story so emotionally compelling. The choices Thelma and Louise make, and the strength they find in each other, allow them to become more fully themselves. Yet just as they begin to take control of their own lives, the world around them seems determined to take that control away again.

More than three decades after the film was released, it still makes you think about how much has changed — and perhaps how much hasn’t.

I went into Thelma & Louise wondering whether the world really needed another movie turned into a musical. I came out thinking that maybe there is a place for this one.

It isn’t perfect. I’d still like a stronger solution to that final iconic moment. I’m also not sure the score contains the sort of songs you’ll find yourself humming three days later andon balance I think it would have worked just as well as a play.

However it’s enormously entertaining, visually inventive and performed brilliantly, with Tucker and Lennox giving the whole production a friendship worth rooting for.

Most importantly, it understands what made Thelma & Louise endure in the first place.

I walked in asking whether we really needed another 1990s film turned into a musical.

By the time the lights came up, I had my answer: perhaps we don’t need another one — but I sure enjoyed this journey.

Accessibility at the Young Vic

From an accessibility perspective, the Young Vic worked really well for me.

There is step-free access into the building, and the wheelchair position was reached via level access around to the bottom of the stalls. A chair was removed to create the wheelchair space, and the position at the corner gave me a genuinely good, unobstructed view of the stage.

The only slightly bizarre issue was other audience members attempting to climb over me to reach their seats rather than going down three steps and back up three steps into their row.

That’s obviously an audience issue rather than a theatre one, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

The bar and foyer can also become very busy. On my visit, the Young Vic was hosting Shedinburgh elsewhere in the building, which made the space particularly crowded before the performance, so that is worth bearing in mind if busy spaces are difficult for you.

There is an accessible toilet, and staff were excellent throughout my visit. An access host met me at the entrance and showed me through to the wheelchair position, which made the whole process very straightforward.

So accessibility-wise, I’d happily return to the Young Vic.