An audience consisting of mums with their daughters dressed as show characters signalled what to expect at Milton Keynes Theatre last night! Yes, we were there to watch the tour of Heathers!
Having never seen the show before I didn’t really know what to expect but I was swept along with the general enthusiasm of everyone.
It is the story of three high school bullies, all called Heather. The leader of the three Heathers’ is accidentally killed by Veronica, who has been forced to join the Heathers’ gang and things get progressively worse with two further deaths and the suicide of Veronica’s seriously unbalanced boy friend. This plot sounds very dark indeed which, up to a point it is, but there was plenty of humour and some great songs.
Jenna Innes played Veronica and she was excellent throughout with a fantastic belt singing voice. Her deranged boyfriend, Jason, was played by Keelan McAuley. Another great singing voice and a difficult part to play, which he managed very well indeed. Heather Chandler, who is the leader of the Heathers’ was brilliantly played by Esme Bowdler. She had a great voice and she managed to get all the humour out of what is actually a rather nasty character. The other two Heathers were played by Sedona Sky and Daisy Twells. They were both excellent but particular praise goes to Sedona who has just graduated from Arts Ed and this is her first professional job.
The two unpleasant school sports “jocks”, Kurt and Ram, were played by Ivan Fernandez Gonzalez and Jason Battersby respectively. They worked wonderfully together and their slick, choreographed moves were very effective. Another person making their professional debut was Amy Miles playing Martha Dunstock, nicknamed Dumptruck, the slightly shy, bullied friend of Veronica. Her performance was lovely, particularly her touching act 2 song.
If I am being really honest, the reason I enjoyed this evening as much as I did is entirely due to the cast performances. The show itself is not really very nice. Most of the characters are quite unpleasant. However I am more that willing to admit that this is probably down the the fact that it is not aimed at my age group!
You can see this show at Milton Keynes for the rest of this week and then look out for it at Chester, Aberdeen, Sheffield, Richmond, Stockton, Oxford, Blackpool, Torquay and Cambridge.