Norma Jeane the Musical – Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre

Rebecca Cole, Maggie Robson and Melissa Suffield in Norma Jean the Musical at Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre, London. Picture: Barry/Front Page Photography

Norma Jeane the Musical continues at Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre, London until 22 March.

Star rating: 3 stars ★ ★ ★

For a brief period in February 1961, Marilyn Monroe was, voluntarily, a patient of the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Centre on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The experience was, she later recounted, “a nightmare”, and it’s in this abysmal period of the troubled actress’ life that the new Norma Jeane the Musical is set.

Little appears to be actually known about Monroe’s time at the Payne Whitney, so the creative team behind this musical imagining – chiefly writer Belvedere Pashun, musical director Anton Mullan and director Christopher Swann – have set the events squarely inside the crumbling mind of the troubled actress.

Deprived of her usual medication, Monroe – or, really, the stripped back, bare Norma Jeane Mortenson – feels the horror of cold turkey in the form of ghosts and demons emerging from her past. As the drugs wear off, she experiences ever-more-vivid and revelatory hallucinations of the people who abandoned her throughout the early stages of her life.

From the off, Rebecca Cole gives us a very credible Norma Jeane: pained, fragile, confused and increasingly demented. A fine actress and with a good voice, Cole is the show’s focal point. Sadly, the rather amateurish programme gives the performers no biog other than their headshots (nor are they listed by song, shamefully), but Cole, I’ve since discovered, is a graduate of the Performers College and served her time performing on cruise ships. Let’s hope her exposure in this show means we’ll see more of her on dry land.

The headline act, however, is Melissa Suffield as Marilyn Monroe. The book cleverly presents Monroe as a fantasy construct of Norma Jeane’s mind, giving the two characters the opportunity to interact. (She’s talking to herself, basically.) Suffield – an EastEnders alumni – does a well-nuanced job of re-creating Monroe, but the script doesn’t quite give her enough to work with, nor does there appear to be much distinction between Monroe and Norma Jeane. As smart as the split-personality conceit is, both characters seem to be confused and challenged by the ghosts that soon appear, and Monroe comes across as equally as fragile as Norma, rather than the sassy, sexy alter ego conjured up to mask her true personality.

Also given top billing is another actor ‘off the telly’, Chris Edgerley (Emmerdale) as Dr McCarthy. Doubling as Norma Jeane’s phantasmic uncle Marion, Edgerley gives a strong performance and acts as a gel holding the rest of the show together. His uneven American accent aside, he is certainly one of the strongest actors on show.

Two others deserve to be singled out for praise. Amanda Swift is excellent as Grace McKee, the family friend who took Norma Jeane into care when her mother Gladys suffered a mental breakdown. (A fan of Jean Harlow, it was McKee who’s often credited with ‘creating’ Marilyn Monroe, dressing little Norma Jeane in white and turning her on to the glamour of Hollywood.)

It’s a pity that we have to wait until the Act II to enjoy Swift at her best, as she has a terrific voice and acts the rest of the cast off the stage. The other highlight – and also in reserve until the second half – is the ever-reliable Maggie Robson as mother Gladys. This pocket rocket explodes on to the stage as the demented mother and steals the limelight in every one of her scenes.

The music is provided, interestingly, by a team of writers with some impressive pedigrees. Chief among these is Liverpudlian Anton Mullan, the show’s MD and self-professed ‘creative firefighter’. Six of the 16 songs on offer are partly or fully credited to the charismatic Mullan, and I suspect that we have him to thank for attracting the rest of the songwriters to the team.

Co-writing with Mullan is David Martin, who penned the global pop standard ‘Can’t Smile Without You’ for Barry Manilow and has written for, among others, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Mama Cass and Dusty Springfield. Geoff Cotton makes his stage musical debut with a number of songs, including the catchy opening number ‘I Am Miss Marilyn Monroe’.

Graham Noon (with Mullan) provides just one song, but for me the best of the show, ‘Hollywood The Gateway to Hell’. The other credited writers are Verity Smith (who attended the press opening and looked every bit like Marilyn Monroe!), Orna Klement (who also performs in the cast) and Mike Daniels.

As interesting as it is to have a diverse team of writers, this is perhaps the show’s weakest link. If there is a homogeneity to the songs, it’s in their blandness, not helped by the rather tinny and badly balanced pre-recorded backing tracks.

Norma Jeane is not a musicals musical, if that makes sense – it’s a revue of pop songs united by the theme of Marilyn Monroe, similar to the original multi-author/performer concept of David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s Imelda Marcos musical Here Lies Love, but without the ambition or audacity. Too many of the songs are gentle-paced pop ballads – all underpinned by the Casio-keyboard backing. When we finally get a well-staged, pacy, quirky number, you can feel the audience waking up and engaging more with the material.

All kudos to choreographer Christina Cuttell for squeezing in what she could in the tricky, tight space of the in-the-round setting.

There’s the kernel of a powerful, effecting show in Norma Jeane, but it’s still in its early stages. (It would seem to have already had its teething troubles: the original plan was to have to Kerry Katona in the lead role, and it’s a testament to the strength of the idea and the passion of the producers that it fights on.)

It certainly deserves to be honed, as it’s a fascinating premise – three dark days in the life of one of the greatest screen icons – and it would very much benefit from having higher production values. It’s hard to capture the glamour of 1950s Hollywood on a shoestring above a north London pub.

In the real story, Monroe compelled her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio to swoop in and rescue her from the asylum. With a bit of luck, this show will find a DiMaggio of its own to take it to the next level.

Craig Glenday

 www.yeolderoseandcrowntheatrepub.co.uk