Lizzie - Greenwich Theatre / Hope Mill / Tour

[Phantom of London]

I saw this yesterday.

Thing the critics were disengenerous here and went straight for the jugular, however I am not so mean and thought all 4 performances rocked, which made several songs rousing, however the book wasn't there and did come across as incoherent and desperate, if you like shows where watermelons are butchered by an axe .- book now. But after my reservations I couldn't hate the show and that is because of the redeemable features I listed earlier.

3 stars.

[theatre-turtle]

I thought this was pretty good actually - a bit like Murder Ballad but much better music. The four performances were all incredible. I do recommend bringing earplugs though as the sound levels are ridiculous

Visually very impressive as well, especially with regards lighting. Instant and full standing ovation at the end.

[johnie21]

Exciting x ✨

[bellatheatre]

It’s going to the Hope Mill!

[BurlyBeaR]

Touring after Hope Mill

[zahidf]

southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/lizzie/

London run 26 OCT - 2 DEC 2023

[Dave B]

£7.50 for the pioneers preview (first night). Wonder if that is going to be an ongoing thing for the Elephant.

[capybara]

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?

[richey]

Has anyone seen this at Hope Mill yet? Have seen a few positive reviews and the photos look really good.
Some friends have got me a ticket for Sunday evening and I'm now worried it might be a bit too gory for my tastes (I'm very squeamish when it comes to blood)

[BurlyBeaR]

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

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

[BurlyBeaR]

🤟🤟🤟

[richey]

Sept 7, 2023 17:42:24 GMT BurlyBeaR said:

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!

[BurlyBeaR]

And the MEN will go to the opening of a bag of crisps!

[benny20]

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

[richey]

Sept 7, 2023 18:41:38 GMT BurlyBeaR said:

And the MEN will go to the opening of a bag of crisps!

along with the vicar bloke off of Corrie. The number of times I've bumped into him in the Palace loos on a press night...

[stevej678]

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.

[stevej678]

[djdan14]

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.

[Fleance]

New Faces of 1952 had it covered.

[Steve]

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.

[Dave B]

We saw this on the first preview at Southwark last night. Slight spoilers but only if you don't know the story or have not read the blurb.

I thought it just ... awful. There is very little about it that didn't come across as poor (notable exception being Shekinah McFarlane who has quite a voice). It felt like the sister and maid had been directed to ham it up, go OTT in everything. The eye wink to the audience was just ... it set the tone really, parody and slapstick and honestly just felt like no respect for the audience at all.

No chemistry, no emotional connection so much strange choices. An early scene more than suggesting that the father was abusing his children yet later the first question the sister has for Lizze is why did she kill her father too?

You know it is a punk rock musical because the cast all wear big black boots with metal studs and decorations which clank as they move around. So punk rock! The final scene where they rush back onto stage having exchanged the somewhat period costumes for skimpy outfits to rock out... I just despair.

I will grant that that 'What The f***' was very funny and very well delivered but the highlight of my evening was an overheard conversation at the interval, after there has been a small bit of blood thrown around (at the back of the stage, nowhere near the audience)

Lady 1. I don't know why they were all in period costumes.

Lady 2. I don't think all that blood was from her period.

Sure, maybe I am just not the target audience and I have never seen Six. We went because the Pioneer Preview makes pretty much everything at Southwark worth seeing (This month I've seen this, The Changeling and Manic Street Creature with Phantasmagoria to come next week) but... off. My partner now considers this the worst thing we've seen - although this is now being phrased as 'that you've dragged me to see'.

Reasonably full, a very small number left at the interval. Ran a little late last night, doors didn't open until maybe 19:50, 45 min, interval, 35 minutes, out about 21:40. Overhearing conversations on the way to the train seemed to suggest we weren't the only ones distinctly unimpressed.

Oof.

[Mark]

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.

[capybara]

I actually really ended up enjoying this wild ride of a rock musical. Admittedly it took me a little while to adjust to what is essentially a concert/gig format, with the story essentially sidelined and the book near non-existent… but once I did, it was a brilliant experience.

I’ve never seen a musical where the score is quite so rock inspired. Make no mistake, this was hard rock, bordering on punk! And the company of four really threw themselves into it. The vocals were unbelievable.

Yes, the book is a mess. Yes, too many songs are steeped in exposition. And no, I don’t know who the future audience of this show actually is. But it’s probably the loudest show I’ve seen in a theatre and there is something uniquely captivating about the performances.

Lauren Drew steals the show as the title role. I only wish she had been directed to reveal Lizzie’s more playful side that we get to see in the hilarious number ‘What The f***, Now, Lizzie?’. She’s so good at that. Vocally out of this world though.

Drew is supported by wonderful vocal performances from Shekinah McFarlane, Maiya Quansah-Breed and Mairi Barclay. Together they are a real force to reckon with.

I can definitely see that some people, who don’t especially like rock or punk, will hate this. But while I still think there’s a long way before this is close to its full potential, I was blown away by the individual performances - even if the songs did seem a little isolated.

It was very empty for a Saturday evening though. Weirdly I’ve seen no discounts for this show, which it clearly needs.

Four stars.

[winonaforever]

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.

[doornumberthree]

Oct 27, 2023 7:41:09 GMT Dave B said:

We saw this on the first preview at Southwark last night. Slight spoilers but only if you don't know the story or have not read the blurb.

I thought it just ... awful. There is very little about it that didn't come across as poor (notable exception being Shekinah McFarlane who has quite a voice). It felt like the sister and maid had been directed to ham it up, go OTT in everything. The eye wink to the audience was just ... it set the tone really, parody and slapstick and honestly just felt like no respect for the audience at all.

No chemistry, no emotional connection so much strange choices. An early scene more than suggesting that the father was abusing his children yet later the first question the sister has for Lizze is why did she kill her father too?

You know it is a punk rock musical because the cast all wear big black boots with metal studs and decorations which clank as they move around. So punk rock! The final scene where they rush back onto stage having exchanged the somewhat period costumes for skimpy outfits to rock out... I just despair.

I will grant that that 'What The f***' was very funny and very well delivered but the highlight of my evening was an overheard conversation at the interval, after there has been a small bit of blood thrown around (at the back of the stage, nowhere near the audience)

Lady 1. I don't know why they were all in period costumes.

Lady 2. I don't think all that blood was from her period.

Sure, maybe I am just not the target audience and I have never seen Six. We went because the Pioneer Preview makes pretty much everything at Southwark worth seeing (This month I've seen this, The Changeling and Manic Street Creature with Phantasmagoria to come next week) but... off. My partner now considers this the worst thing we've seen - although this is now being phrased as 'that you've dragged me to see'.

Reasonably full, a very small number left at the interval. Ran a little late last night, doors didn't open until maybe 19:50, 45 min, interval, 35 minutes, out about 21:40. Overhearing conversations on the way to the train seemed to suggest we weren't the only ones distinctly unimpressed.

Oof.

I could not agree more, I thought it was awful! Great vocal performances but the lack of chemistry especially from Lauren toward Maiya was shocking, Maiya was playing against a brick wall. I thought they all gave fantastic vocals though, even though the score was a mess. I thought Shekinah and Mairi stole the show, those performances and vocals were what kept me there for the second act (unlike quite a few people around me who didn’t come back for act two)

We also had a 15 minute show stop when I went.