The opening bell at Westerburg High peeled tonight at The Regent Theatre to celebrate the first Stoke based performance of the UK 2023 tour of ‘Heathers The Musical’. To say that the 1988 film with Christian Slater and Winona Ryder has a cult following is a slight understatement, as the foyer was littered with fans dressed as their favourite characters and most sporting mock croquet mallets made from everything you can imagine.
The musical stays true to the film’s dark comedy with a sardonic look at the archetypal US high school, with the various groups, the stoners, the football champs and of course, the ‘it’ girls. The latter being where we find the titular ‘Heathers’, three extremely superficial and vapid clique that main character, the initially wholesome and heart warming Veronica gets dragged into, leaving her oldest friend Martha ‘Dumptruck’ Dunnstock behind.
Finding that she is now popular, but cognisant enough to realise the true nature of her new friends, she is torn between her new found fame and her old life, now not fitting neatly in to either. Add to this a tryst with aloof and mysterious new boy Jason Dean (JD), her new beau leads her into a new avenue of bumping off any student who is acting in an unsavoury manner and using Veronica’s penchant for forgery to create suicide notes.
The cast were fantastic. Jenna Innes was inspired as Veronica Sawyer with a barn-storming performance of JD by Jacob Fowler, the two as a pairing were fabulous. The eery nature of JD contrasted brilliantly with Veronica’s journey from nobody to somebody and not really liking either. Their vocal pieces were also expertly executed, solos as well as duets.
The three Heathers were also great. Verity Thompson as lead Heather, Heather Chandler, confident, sassy, bitchy, but very funny at all of them. Elise Zavou played Heather Duke, the girl who you felt always wanted a shot at the number one spot and the vulnerable Heather McNamara played by Billie Bowman, whose character you really felt was dragged along to make a trio rather than being overtly or outrightly one of the clique. All of them excellently played the group, who were very different people in many ways.
Alex Woodward and Morgan Jackson played Kurt and Ram, the high school football stars and were very funny throughout, they were extremely energetic, played off eachother very ably, capturing the nature of college boys. Huge cheer went up for Connor McFarlane and Jay Bryce, who played multiple characters so well, but the Act 2 opening number of ‘My Dead Gay Son’ was reason enough for the loud cheer on it’s own, it was a colossal song and dance piece.
Talking about that, the musical numbers are brilliant and so varied, from the glorious ‘Beautiful’, the playful ‘Freeze Your Brain’. the really fabulously camp and thigh-slappingly music-hall ‘My Dead Gay Son’ to the extremely powerful ‘I Say No’. The score is quite something to take us on a musical journey. The cast were also so accomplished in their vocal performances.
The costumes are as over the top as the plot and the audience love it and the sets are cleverly designed and used.
The cult fans of the film will love it as will people who’ve never seen it before. It’s darkly funny, brilliantly sassy, in-your-face, vocally fantastic with a soundtrack to match.
There was a huge standing ovation at the finish from a packed house and it looked like it meant as much to the cast to receive as it did the audience to convey their enjoyment. Term time on this leg of the tour rings out on 15th April with matinees on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Tickets and more information here: https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/heathers-the-musical/regent-theatre/
Please note that this production contains strong language and mature themes including: references to suicide and eating disorders; moments of violence; murder; sexual content; sexual violence; gunshots and flashing lights. As such, there is also a 14+ guidance on the show.
Credit for all photos is Pamela Raith
