This musical version of Thelma & Louise has many things going for it, notably some thrilling songs from alt-country legend Neko Case, a great cast led by Amy Lennox and Rachel Turner, and some sparking dialogue from Callie Khouri, screenwriter of the classic 1991 Ridley Scott feminist road movie.
It doesn’t quite work though, in large part because it doesn’t make a convincing argument for why this story needs this treatment. Not to say there shouldn’t be a Thelma & Louise musical. But I think Khouri and co could have done more with the medium than offer up the exact plot of Thelma & Louise (the film) with songs bolted on.
It’s still decent and on the whole the more we’re left alone with just the leads, the better it is: Tucker is very good as the sensible one with the traumatic past (Louise); Amy Lennox is borderline sensational as the married one who loosens up, hits the bottle and gets laid on the road (Louise). And it gets extra good during the wilder, more concert-like sections at the start of each half, when it threatens to break into something quite formally different.
But for the most part we get the film’s linear road-movie plot, slowed down and gummed up by the deployment of the ensemble in every scene. That and the frequent need to cut away to the relatively superfluous figure of Hal (Trevor Dion), the kind-hearted homicide detective who comes on board when Louise guns down Thelma’s wannabe rapist after the pair stop for a drink in a roadside bar about five minutes into what’s supposed to be a nice girls’ weekend away.
Although Trip Cullman’s production is stylish in its own way - Christine Jones and Brett J Banakis’s Americana-strewn bar set is very cool, and the strobing light strips are a neat way of conveying velocity without showing an actual car - it’s lacking any great splashy setpieces, and there is for the most part an ambling pace to it rather than the sense events are spinning horribly out of control for our duo.
I’m a Neko Case fan and enjoyed how different to the average showtune her poetic country rock contributions are, with a thumping live-band sound that foregrounds booming drums and forceful guitars. It’s a good selection of tunes: energised, obliquely melodic, with lyrics that underscore the story’s feminist side (which is perhaps less overt in the original film than you might remember).
Still, good as the songs are, they’re mid-paced and contemplative, further slowing the action down. And beyond Case’s songs, Khouri doesn’t offer us a whole lot that’s new: a little fleshing out of backstories, a tiny bit of consideration of race in America, and a gleefully provocative scene right at the start that suggests the duo may have survived the famous ending (I would take this with a pinch of salt). But beyond that there’s no daring rewrite or added theatricality.
In fairness I feel this might be one of those cases where I was simply hoping for a different show to the one presented: as a feminist thriller it’s lacking, as a feelgood-ish comedy about female friendship (with some bold feminist undertones) then it does the job, albeit in a tonally uneven way.
Let’s be honest: as is increasingly the case in London these days, this is an American musical with an American creative team that has its eyes on Broadway and is having try outs here because it’s cheaper to do so. The Young Vic is probably not the intended final destination of this particular road trip and you would imagine this run was always intended to be learned from and built upon. And I hope that happens because it has much to recommend it - I just wish it wasn’t so timid about slamming its food down on the accelerator.
