23 hours Ago By [email protected] (Kirsty Bosley)
I started cringing the moment I sat down in my seat at Birmingham's Alexandra Theatre to watch Ghost The Musical. The show, based on the movie starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, is in Birmingham until Saturday, April 5 and, being a big fan of the flick, I had to see the musical version. I knew in my heart of hearts, in advance, that there was a very real chance I'd get the 'ick' - it takes special songwriting to keep dramatic moments like losing the love of your life in a New York alleyway dramatic.
Read more: Birmingham Alexandra Theatre announces its Christmas show for 2025 Subscribe to the Brum Food Club for a weekly food and drink newsletter, in your inbox, every Thursday. It's free. But the screen that obscures the stage had lyrics to Unchained Melody on it and that, by itself, made me cringe a bit - they were going to lean heavily on The Righteous Brothers, I could tell.
The cringe continued as the show began. There's some chemistry between our two lead characters, Molly (played by Rebekah Lowings) and Sam (Josh St Clair), though not the same kind of heat that makes the movie so compelling - I struggled to get invested in their love story, even when they ripped each other's clothes off after *that* clay scene. During that iconic moment, Molly's moulded clay phallus might have been a fun little wink, had they not overtly acknowledged the thing.
Ick. Ick. Ick.
Cheese, cheese, cheese. The songs are OK, the lyrics in quite a few of them also cringeworthy, my enjoyment on them hinging on the length of the belting notes that Rebekah Lowings made light work of. She's an incredible vocalist.
What was heavier work was trying to convince us that Sam Wheat, a character who can't even bring himself to say 'I love you' to the woman he owns a Brooklyn apartment with, would have an easier time singing about how sad he is to be dead? The ensemble moments took me out of it too, the weird choreography just cheapening it all in my mind - just when I started to get into it, I was icked out by the filler. Now you're probably wondering why I gave it three stars out of five if I found things so unbearable. Let me tell you what I loved: I loved Carl, played by James Mateo-Salt, who really balanced the complex, two-faced turncoat well.
I LOVED Garry Lee's Subway Ghost too. In the movie, he's frightening and chaotic and Garry gave this role the unsettling power it needed. I really loved the illusions, created by Richard Pinner, a Member of the Inner Magic Circle with Gold Star.
When someone died, their soul appeared to really split away from their flesh. Incredible. The real hit of the night for me came in the form of Jacqui Dubois' Oda Mae Brown.
As soon as she appeared on stage, the musical element of it all made perfect sense. The character, a charlatan that it turns out really does have the gift of communing with the dead, is every bit a smoke-and-mirrors performer in her life as a palm reader, so it makes sense that she and her sisters Clara and Louise (played by Tanisa Butterfield and Keiahna Jackson-Jones) would be singing praises and dancing a pre-planned dance. I loved them all.
Oda Mae was a scream and her relationship with Sam made for laugh out loud moments thanks to some hilarious scriptwriting and subtle physical comedy from Jacqui Dubois. By the final scene, I was so far out of it all, I couldn't even think about crying. And I grizzle at everything.
I think the success of the movie Ghost relied on that chemistry between Sam and Molly, the heartwrenching forever love that's clear in every moment they share together when he's earthside. It's dramatic, and scary, with sinister moments that ramp up the threat and the desperation to see things come good. While there was certainly some of this on stage, the way it's interspersed with sing-songs and random ensemble formations kept taking me out of it.
I'm keen to hear what you think if you saw the show and felt differently, let me know in the comments. The Alexandra Theatre knows how to put on a great ghost story: 2:22 A Musical is back in town in October (the scariest thing I've ever seen - here's my spoiler-free review from 2024) and the intense Woman In Black is returning in January too. But as far as this play goes, it's a Ghost story I just couldn't believe in.
Ghost The Musical is at the Alexandra Theatre until Saturday, April 5..
