Perfectly Ordinary: A New Musical at the Bellerby Studio at G Live, Guildford.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Mental health is a topic that affects us all in different ways – whether as patients, family members, friends, carers, or medical professionals. Yet despite its increasing prevalence and prominence in recent years, sadly it often remains a largely taboo subject in modern society, not discussed as frequently or openly as perhaps it should.
As such, comparatively few works of musical theatre have sought to address mental health directly, Sondheim’s famously unsuccessful Anyone Can Whistle, as well as Bacharach and David’s Promises, Promises and more recently Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt’s Next to Normal and Benj Pasek and Justin Paul’s Dear Evan Hansen being among the highest-profile exceptions.
Following in their footsteps, Perfectly Ordinary, with book and lyrics by Matthew Rankcom and music by Joe Wilson, boldly addresses the issue head-on through a fly-on-the-wall focus on an assortment of patients in a fictional British psychiatric ward, taking its inspiration from real-life people.
Its characters represent a diverse range of mental health conditions including dementia, psychosis, alcohol addition and withdrawal, paranoia, violent and suicidal behaviours, dramatic mood swings, and more besides. One, known ominously only as The Girl and played suitably enigmatically by Kate Landy, may indeed not be all that she seems.
Performed in G Live’s Bellerby Studio as part of the Guildford Fringe Festival, its nine-strong ensemble cast (including two covers) shine most brightly during the numbers for full company, particularly in the precision of their execution of Wilson’s pleasing harmonies.
With the audience seated at either side of the performance space, Rankcom’s judicious direction ensures that the cast successfully engages all spectators throughout. His lyrics are somewhat wordy in one or two of the more intricate numbers, and while this works ideally in a studio theatre it might not translate as effectively to a larger venue.
The company’s collective performance is remarkably polished given that the entire production is the result of a little more than a week of intensive rehearsals. While they have clearly bonded together well under significant time pressure, inevitably one or two of the voices show overt signs of tiredness.
As the one cast member whose character is not a patient, Jenni Winter realises Pinkie’s calm yet authoritative influence with aplomb, yielding a stabilising influence notwithstanding the nurse’s precarious work-life balance.
Alexandra Lewis and Sean Hanratty portray most adeptly the awkwardness of the burgeoning relationship between Suzie and Noah, and Landy excels in the show’s final outpouring of emotion, the song ‘In Between’.
Tom Capper and Peter Noden deliver robust and intense performances as George and James, respectively, while Pippa Winslow thoroughly embodies the pathos and vulnerability of Eileen, her song ‘Absence’ being a highlight of Act I.
Suitably complemented by the fluency of his fine playing as musical director and keyboard accompanist, Wilson’s score features first-rate numbers, one standout being ‘Therapy’, which explores the child’s play nature of creative arts and crafts activities, ingeniously combining three nursery rhymes at its climax.
Neatly bookended by the cautiously (and perhaps falsely) optimistic number ‘Sunrise’, it was a pity that the shorter Act II contained more dialogue and fewer songs than in the first half, and this is one area in which the creative team might seek to develop the show going forward.
Exploring a wide range of issues that will doubtless speak to individual spectators in different ways (and perhaps a trigger warning might have been appropriate in respect of some of the more uncomfortable themes explored), this production invites us to question whether anybody is truly perfectly ordinary, and what being ‘normal’ even means.
Dealing with many fundamental matters of mental health with power, poignancy, and sensitivity, Perfectly Ordinary certainly deserves a wider audience, and indeed would have a promising future ahead of it as a means of raising mental health awareness through the medium of musical theatre.
Christopher Wiley
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.