Review: Ghost The Musical at Wales Millennium Centre

Rhys John Edwards

Making a musical adaptation of a classic movie seems like a no brainer. You have a story that is tried and tested. You have ready-made fans who don’t need an awful lot of persuasion to buy a ticket.

And if your movie of choice already has the good fortune of being associated with an immortal banger like ‘Unchained Melody’ by The Righteous Brothers, then you’re off to the races before you’ve even put pen to paper.

But whilst this familiarity might secure the box office, it can also breed a complex form of audience expectation.

Remember when you used to get excited about the Disney live-action remakes? Me neither. But say for argument’s sake you do; you’ll recall that any trace of excitement dissipated around the halfway mark of The Lion King reboot.

There was Beyonce oversinging ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight?’ and there was you, suddenly realising that what you were actually craving was being five-years-old again, rather than thirty, bored and wondering why Pumba sounds like Seth Rogen.

Audiences often think they want more of the same but invariably find themselves getting a little twitchy watching a story they’ve seen before – especially when it has a Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze shaped hole in it. So, budding producers may find that their ‘sure thing’ needs an added ingredient to truly succeed.

Original music from the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart

With Ghost: The Musical, currently playing at Wales Millennium Centre, it seems its producers felt original music from the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart would add the requisite spice – and on the surface, this was a commendable move.

It would have been far easier to turn Ghost into a jukebox musical – perhaps filled with hit pop songs from its era.

But even though this wiser, more creative approach deserves credit, the vast majority of these songs are sadly, bland to the point of being forgettable.

Bar ‘With You’ and maybe ‘Are You a Believer?’ (just about!) most of these showtunes owe a debt to the kind of 90s cheesy power ballad you’d find amongst skippable tracks on a discarded Celine Dion album.

Still, this doesn’t diminish the admirable attempts made by Ghost’s strong cast to bring them to life. So staunch is their fake-it-till-you-make it commitment, there are a few musical interludes which are almost on the brink of becoming half-decent – that is until a few seconds after they have finished playing and you find they have been erased from your memory entirely.

Remarkable passion and fury

Rebekah Lowings plays Molly, a widow whose grief blinds her to the fact that the tragic death of her boyfriend was no random attack. Josh St. Clair stars as said boyfriend, Sam, adjusting to life – or death – existing in the ‘in-between’, all the while desperately trying to find a way to warn Molly of the grave danger she still faces.

Lowings resists portraying Molly’s grief as one-note and instead conveys a diverse range of authentic emotions, and St. Clair plays Sam with just the right amount of fish-out-of-water confusion and wonder required. Both voices complement the other, blending well in numbers like ‘Three Little Words’ and of course ‘Unchained Melody’.

Lowings vocalises her characters’ pain with remarkable passion and fury, and St. Clair in contrast, offers a warm, smooth cadence, exercising exquisite control over his overall tone.

Jacqui Dubois, as Oda Mae – a con-artist turned genuine medium who comes to Sam’s aid – improves every scene she’s in. She puts her own spin on the character, portraying her at first, with a jarring lack of energy. This soon reveals itself to be a conscious choice, presumably to tap into the tired cynicism at the heart of the character, rather than the expected eccentricity more associated with the portrayal given by Whoopi Goldberg in the movie.

Obvious limitations

But the unlikely stand out is one-song-wonder Tim Maxwell-Clarke as the hospital ghost. For me, his was the most engaging performance of the evening.

In such a short amount of time, Maxwell-Clarke managed to exude a level of charm and reveal a depth of character that reached far beyond this production’s obvious limitations.

Speaking of which – the set, much like the music, is fairly unremarkable. The New York offices in particular, probably aren’t cheap, but certainly look it. The choreography too could honestly use a bit of an update.

Most of the movement and blocking feels dated, stompy and occasionally – but specifically, during ‘More’ – bordering on parody, feeling better suited to a SNL sketch than a major touring production.

Ghostly illusions

However, the production team do demonstrate that they have a decent handle on the ghostly illusions, and these end up providing some of the more entertaining highlights from the show.

There are blink-and-you-miss-it sleights of hand throughout, with impressive – ‘How did they do that?! – transitions made during the death sequences.

The subway scenes also deserve praise, with Garry Lee’s subway ghost using his spiritual powers to levitate both objects and cast members without a rope or harness in sight.

But despite the technical prowess, the original music and the strong performances offered up by a compelling cast, Ghost: The Musical doesn’t quite find the secret sauce to justify its existence.

With tweaks to production design, choreography and the inclusion of a few songs which at least try to hold a candle to ‘Unchained Melody’, the show could find its way to becoming good, even if its ties to the far superior movie will always prevent it from becoming great.