Marie and Rosetta at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre - Review

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Tue 27 May 2025 - Sat 31 May 2025

Beverley Knight returns to her home city in a two-hander delving into the lives of two extraordinary women – singers Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight. It’s the 1940s and Rosetta has been enjoying a successful career as a gospel and rock singer but, aware that others are waiting in the wings to take her musical crown, she enlists the help of upcomer Marie Knight to perform as a duo.



In this new play, we follow one night in which the two women explore each other’s motivations and styles, exchange stories and decide whether or not to work together.

Rosetta is the wiser of the two. She’s been performing for years and has faced the obstacles which her colour and sex have thrown in her way. But she is also eager to encourage her new protegée, attempting to bring her out of her shell and into the limelight. Knight gives her character plenty of punch – here is a Rosetta more than ready to take on the world, whether that is in the micro form of a violent husband or the macro form of the bigotry of the Deep South.

Knight, whose previous shows have included The Drifters Girl, Cats, Memphis The Musical and Sister Act, ensures a fully rounded Rosetta so that we are aware not just of her strengths but also of her weaknesses and you can’t help but side with her as she fights her corner.

Opposite her is the softer Marie, played with lots of warmth and humour by Ntombizodwa Ndlovu. Marie is keen to impress, but as she gains confidence, will also have her say. There is a great scene in which she challenges Rosetta about her use of language while also attempting to adopt some of the singer’s moves.

The strength of this show is, without a doubt, the singing from the two women. We see Ndlovu’s Marie calling on The Lord with songs including Were You There and Peace in the Valley which contrasts with Knight’s Rosetta blasting out a rocky This Train or Strange Things are Happening Every Day.

Directed by Monique Touko, the show also features live musicians who add plenty of energy to the performance. The production never pretends that Knight and Ndlovu are playing the instruments, instead giving us a stylised version so we know they are on the piano or the guitar while a musician plays it.

The meeting takes place in a funeral parlour and set designer Lily Arnold cleverly combines the austerity of the room with the opulence of a nightclub stage, with draped curtains which pull back to reveal the musicians.



But in many ways, the play, written by George Brant, could give us so much more. As the women tussle over song styles and share anecdotes of bad husbands, we are left wanting to learn more about their realities. What of life on the road for a young black woman in America’s South, of the challenges of taking gospel music out of the church and into music halls, of the battle for parity with male performers? All these themes are touched on but never delved into – which is a shame as the show could carry so much more impact.

It suffers a little from the ‘tell don’t show’ syndrome in which two speakers are narrating their experiences to each other rather than the audience actually experiencing them on stage. We would all feel the impact of seeing some of these experiences rather than hearing them breezed through as just one tale among many.

Ultimately Marie and Rosetta is a heart-warming story about female friendship but when these two women were living experiences so out of the ordinary in such dramatic times, it feels like there is a richer story in there waiting to come out.

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