ENCORE! Theatre Productions 
Regent Centre, Christchurch 
KD Johnson 
11 October 2024
There are Musical Theatre Companies which prefer to stick to known, tried and tested productions – with songs familiar to us all since childhood. I don’t need to list them, but you will know the sort of shows I mean, and you have probably seen them, performed in them, sung the songs many times. Similarly, there are theatregoers who are only interested in seeing what they know they like – because they have seen it, heard it, watched a film of it – possibly several times. I can’t say that attitude is necessarily reprehensible or wrong – but it does rather stifle innovation. I am definitely not of that ilk – I like to see something new, something that I haven’t seen before, something different, challenging even.
Most viewers will be moderately familiar with the story of the infamous outlaw duo from depression era America – possibly from the 1967 film with Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman, maybe from the 2013 TV mini-series featuring Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger and almost certainly from the 1968 Georgie Fame song ‘The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde’. This is one of those shows where, thankfully, I won’t get hanged, drawn and quartered for revealing the ending. This Bonnie & Clyde is a musical by Frank Wildhorn, with lyrics by Don Black and book by Ivan Menchell. Encore! are the first company to produce this musical in the Dorset area.
The show presents a rather more sympathetic view of the inexorable fate of our two anti-heroes than some – starting with their adolescent years where they are brilliantly represented by Nieve Arrowsmith as the young Bonnie Parker and Joe Campbell-Marsh as the young Clyde Barrow. These juvenile idealists drift in and out throughout the show in evocative and moving intercuts – in one scene in the midst of a gunfight the elder Clyde explains to his younger, idealistic self what it is like to be in that gunfight. Economic circumstances and lack of available work for many during those depression years may explain part of their motivation, their adoration of Al Capone another part, and their desire to achieve fame or notoriety of their own another. What also comes across is the futility of trying to “go straight” when the Barrow brothers have criminal records going back to their childhoods and are routinely suspected of any misdemeanours by the authorities. Those authorities are represented here by Sheriff Schmidt (Barry Gray), Governor Ferguson (Marie Coltman) and several other unsympathetic characters – including a nasty prison guard and the Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer – are played by Martin Mansfield. The only sympathetic character amongst the authorities is Ted Hinton (Robert Stanley), who maintains a long-standing affection for Bonnie and believes that she can be rehabilitated right to the very end. Notably Ted is the only one of the authority figures that sings.
The lack of any scenery dock or other useful backstage space at the Regent Centre restricts what can be done in the way of set but I really appreciate what Director/Set Designer Jo Mansfield and Technical Director Shae Carroll (also performing as Clyde Barrow) have done with the false back to the stage. This not only functions as a projection screen but there are also sliding doors, behind which hide a car, a bed, prison cells and policemen with guns. It makes great use of limited space and aids the fast moving action and dialogue. The performers generally move the furniture themselves without any clunky and longwinded scene changes and they also make use of the front-of-stage space and the auditorium for entrances and exits – it is all very slick and having a posse of men armed with automatic rifles proceeding down the aisles adds a frisson of excitement.
Musical Director Claire Smith (also on keyboard) and her six band colleagues produce a really good sound but the vocal performances by the cast are par excellence. I don’t think anyone is going home from this show with a stand-out song ringing in their ears, because the music is not in that sort of sing-along musical theatre style. At times we have gospel, at other times it approaches modern country music, while there are also elements of jazz/blues/swing. This is sophisticated music with changes of key, tempo and time signatures within songs – not easy to learn or sing but this cast handle it so well. At one point in my notes, I have written “That Bonnie sure can sing” (Bonnie sung by Lizzie Crane), while elsewhere I have written “Buck’s wife sings well” – that is to say Rachel Boucher, who portrays Blanche Barrow. The Barrow brothers Clyde and Buck are played, sung and danced, flawlessly, by Shae Carroll and Adam Davis. Notable also are the Gospel/Spiritualist interludes sung by Martin Boucher as the Preacher – but really there are no weak links in the vocal performances of this cast. There are fine duets between Bonnie and Blanche, Clyde and Buck, and between Ted and Clyde, but the chemistry in the romance between Clyde and Bonnie is tangible. Their duets together are both brilliant and moving – particularly notable is the scene where Clyde lies on the bed, accompanying himself with chords on a ukulele while singing to Bonnie. The only ensemble number which I note is ‘Made in America’, which opens Act II and is perhaps the only one that could be interpreted as a sing-along.
There isn’t much in the way of conventional dancing, but I have to praise the choreography by Hannah Scanlan of the routine between Clive and Buck in ‘When I Drive’ in which they interact with, on and around a vehicle wheel – different and exceptionally executed.
This is, without doubt, the best musical theatre production I have seen in many years.
