Ghost

Review by: Paul Towers, 29 January 2019

Ghost The Musical by Bruce Joel Rubin, music by Dave Stewart & Glen Ballard

A Bill Kenwright presentation

Curve – 29 Jan to 2 Feb

“not a dry eye in the house”

We all know the story of the film starring Demi Moore, Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg. Ghost The Musical follows the film’s story as closely as a stage production can.

Molly (Rebekah Lowings) and Sam (Niall Sheehy) have just moved into a new loft apartment in Brooklyn, New York. It’s up and coming, just not quite yet.

Sam works in the city while Molly is a sculptor. Life is good, in fact perfect. They have a solid love. Then disaster strikes and Sam is shot dead in a street mugging. Despite this someone or something decides he has died too early and he lingers in the world between life and death until his destiny is fulfilled. This entails unscrambling the tangled web of deceit woven by his best friend and protecting his beloved Molly from the bad guys.

Both leads, Lowings and Sheehy, have strong singing voices and a good emotional range. Jacqui Dubois as Oda Mae, the happy medium, has an amazing gospelly voice, great comic timing and makes the most of her role as Sam’s mouthpiece.

Sam’s fine acoustic version of Unchained Melody in the first half, ably accompanied by his guitar playing,  sets you up for the tear jerking duet of the same song between Molly and Sam towards the end. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

A company of  14 and a live orchestra of 7 make this a full blooded production. Lots of scene changes and a fair sprinkling of magic made the journey through inclement weather well worth while.

The full house was very appreciative and if you want to catch this touring version then you need to book quickly as the run is almost sold out.

www,curveonline.co.uk
First publsihed on Western Gazette