Review: HEATHERS THE MUSICAL, The Arts at Marble Arch
Westerberg High School arrives at the brand new (you can smell the freshness as you enter) air-conditioned temporary venue, The Arts at Marble Arch, for just fifty-two performances before going out on a UK tour. Producers Bill Kenwright Limited grabbed the chance to open the new venue and to bring the show to its fans for yet another West End season. It, of course, means that they can promote the latest tour as direct from the West End as well: “Join us for more fun at a town near you” through to April 2027.
The venue is a utilitarian box located on the roundabout near Marble Arch on the edge of Hyde Park. It serves as a temporary home for the Arts Theatre in Leicester Square for the duration of its two-year refurbishment. Its raked seats of 550 are comfortable but with the stage on floor level, the sight lines from the side blocks are not so good, leaving you to peer around the head of the person in front to see centre stage.
The building is constructed in a lightweight fabric, woven between vertical posts. The theatre has been designed as a highly sustainable, temporary structure with a projected lifespan of up to 20 years. The stage is surrounded on three sides by stacked shipping containers which not only provides space for toilets, dressing rooms and offices, but also acts as an acoustic buffer. The toilets are better than usual for a temporary facility and the foyer bars are attractive, although queues of people waiting to be served blocks lateral movement across the foyer spaces to the side entrances of the auditorium. However, that “acoustic buffer” does not work unfortunately. At one point in the performance, we thought the place was subject to a police raid as sirens raced around the roundabout and down Park Lane. The music from a musical rickshaw outside also drifted in. None of this will put off the Heathers fans keen to see the show again and create the party atmosphere that they are known for though.
This particular reviewer has never seen the show but Besties, WEBF have reviewed it many times before with five stars for the 2021 Theatre Royal Haymarket run and four stars for the 2021+2022 The Other Palace, 2023 UK Tour and 2024 @sohoplace runs and are very much aware of the success that Christine Bennington, Carrie Hope Fletcher, Jodie Steele, Jenna Innes and Jordan Luke Gage all enjoyed in the show. The iconic image of the three ‘Heathers’ in their rainbow-coloured tartan skirts armed with croquet bats seems to promise something upbeat and fun about female empowerment.
In case you, like me, are new to the story: Veronica Sawyer (Gerardine Sacdalan) arrives at Westerberg High School and wants to be part of the in-crowd; Heather Chandler in red (Liberty Stottor) , Heather Duke in green (Jessica Ibadin) and Heather McNamara in yellow (Lou Henry), and uses her skill of forgery to win favour. The appearance of JD (Louis Hearsey) dressed in black tempts her on a destructive path in which three school kids are murdered.
There is a very good, synchronised comic turn from Markus Södergren and Beau Jackson as Kurt and Ram, although they are required to play the whole of the second half dead in their underpants. We sometimes question who we are meant to sympathise with. Many in the audience whoop and cheer at each dark turn! Martha Dunnstock (a delightful professional debut from Sophie Manners) is the only character who truly deserves our sympathy and perhaps embodies the writers intended message that friendship and caring, not attention seeking and aggression, is the way forward.
Before the show, and at the interval, the auditorium fills with the sounds of 80s pop music, but it simply shows that Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe’s score, which makes light of elements of the plot, is sometimes serviceable over being memorable. The music is played loud (perhaps to drown out the external noise?) and with occasionally unclear diction, it is sometimes hard to catch all the lyrics. ‘I Say No’, sung by Veronica about JD, really stands out, while humour is shown in JD’s chilling ‘Freeze Your Brain’, Ms Fleming’s (Veronica Carabai) ‘Shine a Light’ focusing on someone in the front row, and hope is portrayed in ‘Seventeen’ with its call to give up violence and “be kids”.
There’s no doubt that this show has already built a cult following and could perhaps go on to be the next Rocky Horror Show being rolled out around the country regularly. It undoubtedly appeals to the same audiences who love musicals such as Legally Blonde, High School Musical, Mean Girls and Clueless, and if that gets them to appreciate live theatre then we applaud it. We are sure that Heathers fans will follow the production for more fun at a town near them and that is a very good thing.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
