by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber
Smile Musical Youth Theatre, director Joe Logan
Dormston Mill Theatre, Sedgley – Saturday 31st May 2025
“Jesus Christ Superstar” has an unusual background in that it started life as a concept album in 1970 before making its stage debut on Broadway a year later.
Arguably one of Rice and Lloyd-Webber’s best known musicals, yet it doesn’t have huge number of familiar songs contained within it. Most people will be familiar with the title song, although for those of us of a certain age it will forever be associated with footballer Charlie George (you may need to ask your dad or grandad about that!) and “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” just about scraped into the lower reaches of the UK singles charts for Yvonne Elliman in 1972.
The show is an almost entirely sung production, and is a challenging work for a young cast to take on. But, I am pleased to say they very much rose to the challenge.
Probably wisely, the production is a single-set stage, with some scaffolding at the back allowing for an elevated area on top of which some of said scaffolding had been fashioned into the shape of a cross, which was particularly effective towards the end of the show.
In addition, parts of the auditorium and indeed the balcony were also used in order to expand the story-telling, which gave the cast some extra space in which to increase the amount of movement, which also worked very well.
We had a lively musical opening but, and this is something that keeps cropping up in a lot of shows I have seen, on more than one occasion the music was set at too high a level and made it difficult to hear what the performers were singing, even though they all seemed to be wearing microphones. This was especially noticeable during the early number “Heaven on Their Minds” and cropped up again a couple of times in the second act.
Obviously, the musicians were excellent but I would like to hear both writers’ contributions.
The only other issue I noticed was a bit of interference coming through during “Pilate’s Dream” but all credit to the actor who just powered through it. (Which is all you can do to be honest).
One of the musical numbers I especially enjoyed was the opening to act 2, “The Last Supper”, with a lot of good movement from the cast with them ending up in that very familiar tableau that we all know from the da Vinci painting. Very effective.
Some good use of costume throughout with a largely eastern (Turkish?) theme, probably a lot easier to perform the dance routines in than the long robes normally associated with this period. There was a lot of colour throughout, especially those worn by the apostles, which was a nice contrast to the plain black robes worn by the priests.
But the production certainly did not tie itself down to a time period, as exhibited by the 1920s flapper dresses worn by the ladies in Herod’s court, the 1960s frocks worn by the Soul Girls (a clear nod to the Supremes there) Pilate in his very 21st century black trousers, tie and waistcoat, picking him out as an official and the Guantanamo Bay style orange jumpsuit worn by Jesus
when he was being held prisoner in act 2. Elsewhere there were a lot of red and a lot of sparkle in the Temple scene.
The blood effect on the cast during Jesus’s public flogging was very effective
As I overheard in a conversation behind me, this is a very challenging production to be undertaken by a mostly teenage cast, and I am pleased to say they rose to the occasion splendidly. To such a degree that you didn’t even register that a lot of the traditionally male parts were being played by (and indeed portrayed as) women. You just went with the flow and accepted it.
Samuel Broomhall-Tighe led the cast as the eponymous Jesus, who was pretty much in most of the scenes. Whilst he seemed a little subdued to begin with, although this may have been a directorial decision to bring himself up through the duration of the play. Otherwise, this was a very solid performance with a clear voice.
Nancy Minaker was a very able support in the role of Mary in a costume appropriate to the character’s supposed profession, which we need not dwell on here. Nancy had a very strong singing voice which especially came over well in the aforementioned “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” which clearly had the audience entranced as there was barely a sound to be heard.
Macy O’Donoghue gave us a very confident and believable performance in the role of Judas and exhibited a lot of energy throughout the production. Traditionally, this is not a character that gets the sympathy of the audience but you could see she was bringing out the pathos of the character.
Freddie Perry gave us a solid performance in the role of Pilate, very much the civil servant of day, whilst Taylor Simner gave us a delightfully camp performance in the role of King Herod – not sure if that’s how the role is normally played but it certainly entertained those watching.
Unfortunately, the cast was too large for me to mention everyone but the whole cast worked together well to give us a splendid afternoon’s entertainment.
It’s always encouraging to see so many young people take up this often ludicrous hobby of ours and it is especially satisfying to see them clearly enjoying themselves in bringing this production to an audience. Very well done.
Reviewed by – David G
Comments are closed