Bold but uneven, Bloody Mary and the Nine Day Queen suffers from clumsy direction and clunky writing, but is still worthy of celebration by musical theatre fans.Rating
Good
If your heart sinks at the thought of the recently announced Karate Kid: The Musical, I bring reassuring news. New, original British musicals not only exist, but, on the evidence of Bloody Mary and the Nine Day Queen, they offer more intellectually ambitious fare than derivative movie nostalgia.
Not quite a tale as old as time, this is a tale as old as the Tudor dynasty. It charts the tragic demise of Lady Jane Grey, who fell foul of power politics and met a grisly end after just nine days on the throne. It’s not merely an old story; it’s an old-school musical theatre show, too. There’s no radical reinvention, no pop megamix or hip-hop appropriation here. That’s not to say it’s dull. Driven by Constantine Andronikou’s confidently comic turn as the scheming Duke of Northumberland, the story initially unfolds with pace and energy. The humour lands early on, the story moves, and there’s plenty of wit beneath the Tudor melodrama. Heavy-handed references to Jane’s piety and the Reformation aside, it’s all pleasantly lively stuff.
As Lady Jane, Anna Unwin, who also shares writing duties with Gareth Hides, exudes all the power of a bona fide West End leading lady, particularly when belting out her song ‘Turn This Around’ at the close of Act One. She also shares the soaring duet ‘Faithful’ with stage husband Johnnie Benson, a standout hit if I ever heard one. Cezarah Bonner’s Queen Mary, meanwhile, provides a suitably operatic villain, hitting all the right notes as she plots and schemes her way to the throne.
The score is strong, sweepingly romantic, and easily on par with much else in the West End. It is, sadly, frequently undermined by cumbersome lyrics. We’re told repeatedly that Jane is “stuck between a rock and a hard place”. This is accurate, perhaps, but hardly poetic. The plotting, too, can feel prosaic and workmanlike. Battles and rebellions get fleeting nods while the characters’ emotional development often feels haywire, not helped by jarring shifts in tone. It’s hard to know quite how to respond, for example, when an outlandish cartoonish Philip of Spain, complete with an absurdly fake moustache, strides into the midst of Jane’s life-and-death struggle. The scene that follows, in which Mary is crassly wooed, is a tone-deaf pantomime-style indulgence that serves nobody, and I suspect may well disappear in any future iteration of the show.
Direction is at times wayward elsewhere, with action that feels cramped and awkward on the Union’s small stage, despite Ella Burell’s sparse, functional period set design. Elisabeth Hindse’s costumes are noteworthy, too. The Tudor dress she has found for Queen Mary impressively seems straight from Wolf Hall. There’s little sign of movement direction from Erena Bordon Sanchez, with no real dance or choreography to speak of. The decision to stage dramatic, knelt beheadings downstage right is regrettable, given The Union’s raked seating sightlines. Clumsily, we also see executed characters get up to make their exit, very much alive, in the subsequent blackout.
And yet, as the finale unfolds, such quibbles are silenced. When Lady Jane Grey, just seventeen years old, contemplates her fate and the afterlife, the show finds the heart it needs to rise above its rough edges. In these final, haunting moments, Bloody Mary and the Nine Day Queen shines, providing welcome hope for British musical theatre fans. All may not be lost.
Written by Gareth Hides with Anna Unwin
Directed by Adam Stone
Musical Direction by David Gibson
Movement Direction by Erena Bordon Sanchez
Set Design by Ella Burrell
Costume Design by Elisabeth Hinde
Lighting Design by Leigh Mulpeter
Produced by Handiwork Productions
Bloody Mary & The Nine Day Queen plays at the Union Theatre until Wednesday October 29.
