UK Review: Promises and Lies: the UB40 Musical

And so - hot on the heels of Mamma Mia, We Will Rock You, Tonight's the Night, Our House, Jersey Boys, All Shook Up and many dozens more - here arrives yet another jukebox musical, this time with music courtesy of UB40, whose biggest hits include Red Red Wine and Can't Help Falling in Love. Despite the critical stigma that's often attached to these musicals - with their structures intent on incorporating dozens of hits - here's a show which actually tries to reinvent the genre by having a more book-focused show and just fourteen songs.

The musical examines the lives of the underground creatures who dominate city centre nightlife. With many different storylines casually intertwined the main focus is on Rudie, a homeless eighteen-year-old whose heroin-addict boyfriend goes missing one night. Promises and Lies is very much an 'issues' based play - with prostitution, drug addiction, gun crime, mugging and murder all centre-stage subjects - but the crucial question that must be instantly addressed with jukebox musicals is how the music is incorporated, and whether it's appropriately used.

And that - unfortunately - is where it sadly goes downhill. Reggae music and gritty new writing are two theatrical elements that simply do not mix in this production. Promises and Lies has the potential to make a good two-hour play about city life in Britain today, but with regular interventions of percussion, trumpets and saxophones, it just falls mighty flat. Long scenes of high-octane dramatic shouting are rudely punctured by UB40's songs, which then alter the dynamic of the scenes for the worse. It's not a comfortable combination, and coupled with a terrible sound design it just doesn't work. For a contemporary play the music is too dated. It's glaringly obvious that this wasn't a musical written from scratch, but one with pre-existing material jarringly shoved in.

Despite the musical criticism, there's a distinctively urban, modern feel in both Jess Walters' writing - which is very soap-opera driven - and the visual images created by Simon Higlett's wonderful set and costumes, which brilliantly depict the essence of our generic city centre creatures; chavs and all. There's been much media attention about the way our shopping districts are becoming too similar; the attraction of Promises and Lies is that this could be any city in any part of the UK. The problem with this is that it's not grounded enough in a sense of location; the accents vary from region to region, and when it's quite clearly set in Birmingham, I just wish the two directors had made it more blatant.

In a fairly large ensemble cast the only memorable performance comes from Julie-Alanah Brighten as Breda; she brings some nice subtleties to her character; dejected but not defeated. Her solos are the more genuinely affecting ones of the night but sadly even her poignant Red Red Wine resorts to a full-blown reggae shout-a-thon eventually. West End regular David Burt literally screams his way through one of his songs, and though this is probably intentional it's just feels incredibly unnecessary; if it was supposed to be dramatic then it wasn't.

Clive Rowe and Tameka Empson - two great musical theatre performers - are under-used and wasted. It's a shame that they're mere supporting artists in this show; Rowe especially, whose character is bland and 2D, supposedly 'the lovable one' but in reality just pathetic. Empson, as a leather-clad dominatrix, receives the more genuine laughs of the night, and really should have had more stage time. All her scenes are highlights. But overall, it's a shame these two grossly talented actors aren't given the meatier parts they are capable of.

What this feels like is an evening of wasted opportunities, both in the performances and in the script. There is a great amount of workable potential, and had it have been a straight play it could have made an excellent comment about our city centre lives, but at the moment, the music is too much of a barrier to get to the all-important emotional punch it wants to give. The language and situations aren't confident enough to be convincing - do people really say 'what a prat' in 2006? - and some of the lines are far too melodramatic to be emotionally intense. Walters is under commission from the Royal Court, and I think that away from the huge Rep stage she'll do well. Praise must go to Birmingham Rep for not taking the easy option and staging a generic jukebox musical, but what Promises and Lies seems to prove is that actually taking the easy option does sometimes provides a more satisfying evening of entertainment than what's on offer here.

Promises and Lies runs at the Birmingham Rep until April 15th. More details at www.birmingham-rep.co.uk 

 

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