The Secret Life of Bees – Almeida Theatre

Eleanor Worthington-Cox and Rachel John in The Secret Life Of Bees at the Almeida Theatre, London. Picture: Marc Brenner

The Secret Life of Bees continues at the Almeida Theatre, London – until 27 May 2023.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

The first thing you notice about the staging of The Secret Life of Bees, the musical based on Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, is the lighting. It is a warm, golden hue: the colour not only of summer sun in the Deep South, but of the sweetest honey.

Darker hues arrive almost immediately. In 1960s America at the height of the Civil Rights movement Eleanor Worthington-Cox’s Lily is a young girl who is terrorised by her authoritarian father, T-Ray (Mark Meadows). After her only friend, the family’s maid Rosaleen (Abiona Omonua), is harassed and then arrested for trying to register to vote, the girls run away together.

Their destination is a small town in South Carolina which Lily believes holds some connection to her dead mother. She finds it at a honey farm run by three sisters, led by Rachel John’s August Boatwright, where her mother once also took refuge.

With no less than 20 numbers, several of which are reprised, The Secret Life of Bees manages to never seem song-heavy. Lynn Nottage’s deft book writing keeps much of the original novel’s structure (save for one character, whose death in the book is ignored to give them a happier ending).

That said, there are some niggles. A radio announcer pops up to deliver news headlines about three missing civil rights campaigners: while this is a convenience to both siting the story at a specific point in America’s history and also conveys the passing of time, it feels perfunctory. And a scene in which August and her sisters fear for Lily when she takes a car ride into town with farmhand Zachary (Noah Thomas) has a sense of urgency in the face of immediate danger which goes nowhere.

The music, by Spring Awakening composer Duncan Sheik, does not quite possess the same consistency of tone. Some numbers feel appropriate to the era and setting, while others feel much more contemporary in tone. The use of uptempo brass in several of the show’s more joyful numbers, in particular, may not be anachronistic when thinking of the pop hits of the era, but certainly jar against the tone of the work that director Whitney White seeks to provide elsewhere. Other guitar-based numbers gel more closely with the onstage action, although throughout musical director Toby Higgins and his band work diligently to ensure excellence.

Susan Birkenhead’s lyrics also struggle on occasion to match the beauty of Nottage’s script work. Simple rhyming schemes and a reliance on repetition stand in stark contrast to the taut, emotion-laden book, and the show’s title number feels particularly thin.

Of the two leads, Omonua’s Rosaleen has the more interesting character arc, at least in Act I, and capitalises upon that with a performance that is fiery and has real teeth. In comparison, Worthington-Cox’s Lily often feels like a supporting character in what, in the novel, is her story. When she is foregrounded, she is able to bring moments of real heartache. At other times it feels like the character of the abused white girl detracts from the story’s true centre, a tale of the Black people fighting to find their own place in a country that is reluctant to allow them the rights and privileges to which they are entitled.

To that end, Rachel John emerges as the true star of The Secret Life of Bees. In her hands, the kindly matriarchal figure of August Boatwright becomes something more powerful. The leader of a group of women who worship a status of the Virgin Mary as a Black woman, John’s August becomes almost deified herself.

And it is with her transcendent performance that any concerns about the show fade away: of all the bees buzzing around on the Almeida stage, Rachel John is the undoubted queen.

Scott Matthewman