Lizzie - Greenwich Theatre / Hope Mill / Tour

Intrigued by this but there seem to be some real contrasting opinions.

In theory, it sounds like it should be a wild night but I’m still to be convinced. Maybe one to wait for the reviews?

Has nobody from the “real” press been to see it? 

Another one that’s off Mark Shenton’s radar? 🙂

Not even a Manchester Evening News review!

They'll wait til it gets to that London place!!

Didn't really know what to expect from this at all but, wow, this was pretty darn incredible at Hope Mill this evening!

First up, the auditorium at the Hope Mill is now air conditioned! Much needed on a sweltering day like today.

The set for this isn't going to win any awards, despite the eye-catching spectacle of an axe spinning on an illuminated gramophone as the audience take their seats. The lighting is gorgeous though. The premise of the show is quite fascinating, based on the true story of Lizzie Borden who was accused of the murder of her father and stepmother.

The punk rock score is terrific but it's the cast of four who really make this show soar. I don't think the Hope Mill could have assembled a better quartet! The talent and vocals on that (somewhat creaky!) stage is pretty darn special and the chemistry between them electric.

Mairi Barclay gives the standout performance for me as Bridget, the maid. Mairi's stage presence is off the scale and she has great comic timing to go with the killer vocals! She also gets to lead the show's most anthemic number, The House of Borden.

The thrilling choreography is a treat to behold, especially close up in an intimate setting like the Hope Mill.

Sung through apart from a few brief snatches of dialogue, the show runs at one hour 40 minutes including an interval. It would be better straight through, I think. But there's little doubt that Hope Mill (and soon Southwark Playhouse) have a potential cult hit on their hands here. Colour me obsessed.

Saw this today in Lancaster! (thrilled to see the local theatre getting this and I would defo say worth a watch if you get the chance. We even had a 15 minute show stop 5 minutes into the 2nd half where the doors wouldn’t open! Had to be left open for the rest of the show.

This was awesome at the Southwark Elephant tonight!

Way WAY better than this same material played at Greenwich theatre, where there was something disjointed about the production. Influenced by Six, I would imagine, these four stalk each other round the stage like a well-oiled machine, producing an effect that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

The part of Lizzie Borden is key, and Lauren Drew is a fantastic Lizzie, haunted, vulnerable, lost and found, meek and violent; and Mairi Barclay is hilarious in the comic relief role!

This is a sung through rock musical with barely any book, so don't book this if you want book. This is not easy listening, but hard rock, so don't book this if you want your mind massaged.

But if you want to rock, and you're in a bit of an emo mood, this is oddly and thrillingly empowering.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I liked this at Greenwich but I LOVED this at the Elephant!

If you know the band, Haim, which has a lead singer, Danielle, who barely ever says anything, while her sisters are gobby as heck, this is like a hard rock Haim gig where Danielle goes very very bad. Cos Lauren Drew comes off, as Danielle does, as a gentle hippy soul in whose mouth butter wouldn't melt, but then the plot kicks in and she goes very very wrong: think of this musical as "Haim goes Wrong."

Alternately, if you don't know Haim, think of this as "Sex Abuse the Musical," (with all that implies - I wouldn't bring toddlers to this) cos although there are mysteries behind why Drew's Lizzie behaves the way she does, in my mind, this has sexual abuse written all over it. And from that perspective, the horrors she commits are a kind of liberation, which is why, in a weird way, there is something so empowering at watching the sleeping wallflower go witch from hell woke.

Maybe think of this as "Six Abuse - the Musical," cos there is so much Six in the way these four fill each others spaces, in the way they work together to present a sum greater than its parts.

This is like Macbeth's witches formed a heavy metal band, where you are never quite sure if the fab foursome are practising light or dark magic. This is like a Kate Bush show, if Kate Bush was a metalhead, as the show melds and mixes songs together into a cohesive story with an eye for exciting theatrical effects, and the set is decorated by pigeons, which also feels very Kate Bush. Where Bush's Hammersmith show was called "Before the Dawn," this show would be called "After the Dusk." I could really believe that Bush was behind a show like this, with it's feminist theme of trying to exist in a world that has damaged you.

This show also put me in mind of Amazon Prime's fabulous "Daisy and the Six," in which Riley Keough's wallflower Daisy is an avatar for Stevie Nicks joining Fleetwood Mac and blossoming into a rock goddess, as like in that show, the lead here, Lauren Drew's Lizzie Borden, grows from a place of absolute desolate emptiness through a tortured reality into a forceful rock goddess. This however, is like an Aleister Crowley version of that show, as Borden's mode of expression is not the guitar axe but an actual axe and her route to freedom is not songwriting but murder. Think of this as "Lizzie and the Three."

While watching the wide-eyed vacant damaged horror, in Drew's Borden's eyes, turn into fragile haunted laments and furious rocking revenge, is the main course, it would be exhausting if Mairi Barclay's maid, Bridget Sullivan, weren't so damn funny. She is like Father Ted's affable scatty Mrs Doyle crossed with the Devil, with a bit of nun, a bit of librarian, and a bit of stripper thrown in for good measure. The actor has comic bones, and combines all these qualities to unique, memorable and hilarious effect. The story, as told here, is essentially Faustian, and Barclay's Bridget is Mephistopheles, pulling all the strings.

Although they are more peripheral characters than the other two, both Shekinah McFarlane, as Lizzie's sister, and Maiya Quansah-Breed, as Lizzie's love interest, are critical to the story. Like the Pushmi-Pullyu in Dr Doolittle, they are two heads facing different ways, tightening the screw on Lizzie till she must act. The sister pushes Lizzie with the news that they will lose all their parents money, even as the love interest pulls her with a forbidden kiss. McFarlane's deep powerful belt and Quansah-Breed's pitch high cri de coeur are the strings that tighten the Faustian knot. (Incidentally, McFarlane is immensely funny in the aftermath of Lizzie's fateful actions, when she applies her deep belt to a literal "What the F--k!" song lol).

If there is a flaw in this show, it's that we never get to meet the parents as actual characters, given how critical their behaviour and being is to the plot.

This show is not for little ones or haters of hard rock, but older lovers of Six may find much to love here. And, only a passing admirer of Six myself, I enjoyed this dark rock journey much much more. 4 and a half stars from me.

I enjoyed it, score was pretty good and catchy, and performers were great. I kinda wish I’d known the material a bit beforehand because it was very much a “gig type” musical it that makes sense. Very much worth a watch.

I was there for yesterday's matinee, absolutely adored every second and have just booked tickets to go back.
As capybara found in the later show, it was surprisingly empty though, loads of choice of tickets for future performances, just not in the central part of the front row, which is where I was sitting yesterday.

Saw the show yesterday Emma Louise Hoey was on as Lizzie instead of Lauren Drew, overall I'm glad I saw the show the audience appeared to enjoy it. But a lot of empty seats.