Anna Burnside reviews ‘a tremendous night out’.
Rose-Lynn does not have her troubles to seek. Released from prison, on a tag, she’s welcomed home as if she was a bailiff with a warrant. Her job as resident chanteuse at the Grand Ole Opry country music club has been taken by Alan the sometime carpet fitter. She is reduced to dusting the Diptyque candles of a rich family in the west end.
However, this is a musical, not just a single country song, so good things happen to her. Eventually. With painful relapses and difficult life lessons in between.
This zippy theatrical version of the 2018 film is adapted by Nicole Taylor, who wrote the original screenplay. Unfortunately, two problems from the screen version have been transferred to stage. First, a huge plot point hinges on Rose not telling her bougie boss that she has kids. There is no earthly reason for this, and it rings false.
Second, Rose’s mother is all wrong. Julie Walters, on screen, was 20-odd years too old. Blythe Duff, 13 years younger than Walters, is less obviously of the wrong generation, and smashes some of the best individual lines. It’s the writing and wardrobe that still hit an off-note: she does not come across as a woman from a high rise block with a wayward daughter and a job in the bakery.
Which is a shame because everything else here slaps. Dawn Sievewright is stellar as the gallus, flawed Rose-Lynn. Duff is tremendous as her long-suffering maw: it’s not her fault she’s wearing a gilet. The supporting cast, mostly female and including two excellent weans with strong personalities, play a blinder.
John Tiffany keeps it all bounding along at a cracking pace, and a terrific eight-piece band along the back of the stage make this a proper musical, not one of those awful Poundland touring pieces with one MD on a keyboard hiding in the pit.
All the other elements are so strong that they overcome the two major issues, creating a tremendous night out that transcends its genre and is surely destined to be a mainstream hit.
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Wild Rose performs at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh until April 19, 2025.
Photo by Mihaela Bodlovic.
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