Wolverhampton Grand Theatre – until Saturday 9th March
Reviewed by Nadia Dodd
4****
For anyone unfamiliar with the wanna be outlaws/bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow: they died in the end. In the musical Bonnie & Clyde, they die in the beginning, too. I was surprised to see the opening scene of the couple in their Ford Sedan, Clyde behind the wheel and Bonnie’s head resting on his shoulder. The voice over explains that gun wielding cops had finally caught up with the infamous duo. The scene is then set to start the musical explaining how the couple first met and how their love affair began.
Bonnie (played by Katie Tonkinson) lives with her mother, Emma and is desperate to leave her life at home, she dreams of following in the footsteps of silent film star Clara Bow. Clyde (played by Alex James-Hatton) is obsessed with criminal role models, living the American Dream and he also wanted freedom. Criminals enjoyed cult status in the 1930’s such as Al Capone, a ruthless murderer.
Clyde and his brother Buck, (played by Sam Ferriday) plan where they are going to rob next and Clyde always drives the getaway car, the faster the better. When they are both sent to jail Clyde decides to break them both out, and they do manage to escape until Buck’s wife, Blanche (played by Catherine Tyldesley) does convince him to hand himself in, go back to jail, serve his sentence so that they can both settle down and not be living life on the run any longer.
While Clyde is on the run and not knowing that his brother will be handing himself back over to the police, he meets Bonnie, and they do fall in love at first sight. Bonnie reads him some poems she has been writing and Clyde somehow convinces her that the two of them should be together but both living looking over their shoulder, committing crimes and never to settle down in one place.
Eventually we are taken back full circle as of course they are caught and we all know how their story ends, ‘going down together’.
The cast of this show were simply fantastic, the voice of the preacher (Jaz Ellington) was mesmerising, his soulful, joyous gospel scene could not stop me feet from tapping along.
A truthful and inventive version of the cult-sensation that were Bonnie and Clyde in a musical for audiences to enjoy.