& Juliet at Birmingham Hippodrome - Review
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Tue 22 Apr 2025 - Sat 03 May 2025
Adding a heavy dose of fun and pop music to Shakespeare's tale of woe, hit musical
& Juliet stops off in Birmingham during its first UK tour - and if you thought this was just a fluffy mickey take, think again.
It may feature a zany storyline of what if Juliet survived without Romeo and a back catalogue of 1990s and 00s pop hits, but there's ingenious comedy and a well-versed knowledge of Shakespeare at its heart. After all, this West End favourite has three Olivier Award wins to its name.
This big-budget musical is at
Birmingham Hippodrome until May 3. Leading the show is Gerardine Sacdalan and her extraordinary voice as Juliet, but it also stars pop singer Jay McGuinness, formerly of
The Wanted as William Shakespeare and TV doc Ranj Singh.
The sets are big and glitzy, including confetti showering the audience later on. There are even bigger dance routines and a continuous stream of pop after pop hit. It opens as Will Shakespeare is finishing off his latest book, Romeo and Juliet, but his wife Anne Hathaway has other ideas - more feminist ones.
She manages to convince Will to let her ideas run, which dramatically changes the shape of the plot unfolding on stage into a story of female empowerment. Instead of a double death, Juliet wakes up and has a whole other life to live as an independent woman. There are many more surprises along the way that I don't want to spoil, but in the vein of the bard's work, it leads to many gender bending mix-ups, secret liaisons and wedding day dramas.
There are huge pop hits from the get-go. Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Jessie J within the first half an hour as Juliet heads off on a kind of gap year with her gay best friend May and nanny Angelique to Paris. Kelly Clarkson, Demi Lovato and Katy Perry are yet to come in this fast-paced comedy.
Although a mix of jukebox musical and pantomime,
& Juliet has more depth, hitting the right level with audience members of all ages. While the teenagers start partying, there are more mature storylines involving the Shakespeares' marital issues and Juliet's nanny discovering her long-lost love, played by Singh, is a widower in Paris, shown below. Singh is well cast for his personality and acting rather than his singing ability in this comic role as Lance.
The poignancy comes mainly from the impressive Lara Denning as Hathaway, pictured with Sacdalan as Juliet below. Denning is a delight - all sass amid Elizabethan masochistic values - always fighting Juliet's corner, particularly through Celine Dion rock ballad
That's The Way It Is. Her voice really is stunning.
So too is Sacdalan's as a feisty yet vulnerable Juliet. She's got the voice and moves to make Juliet look like a pop star in most of the dance routines, all of which are super slick in this highly polished production.
Yet between the big dance routines and monster pop hits, there's a clever reworking of the original Shakespeare characters and an in-depth knowledge of Shakespeare and his wife's relationship. Along with plenty of jokes, there's sentiment too.
This marvellous show is so good that parting from it brings such sweet sorrow.
& Juliet is a hilarious, fun and imaginative musical that you'll want to see time and time again. There's nothing of a tragedy about
& Juliet, it's all feel-good fun.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Age guidance is 8+ as it contains strong language. No under 3s are admitted.
Tickets cost from £25 from the
Birmingham Hippodrome website here .
& Juliet runs in Birmingham until Saturday, May 3, 2025.
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#arts_culture 307047 - 2025-04-22 11:55:12