By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN?: Saturday 26 October 2024 (matinee), runs through 9 November 2024 RUNTIME: 155 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

The best bit in this Elvis Costello musical based on a 1957 US film is when leading man Ramin Karimloo (Murder Ballad, Arts Theatre) leaps into the audience in a political rally as charismatic man of the people Lonesome Rhodes during song Blood and Hot Sauce.

• Read on for reasons including how it was baffling this could promise so much and yet deliver so little

We’re in the 2nd row when he vaults from the stage onto the odd spare seat in the front half dozen rows and it’s a bold action by an established and acclaimed performer which captures the attention in a way that the story and the songs in this underwhelming work largely failed to do.

Karimloo is a Broadway star who appears here as drifter Rhodes who is discovered imprisoned in Arkansas by Olivier Award-nominated Anoushka Lucas’ (Oklahoma!, Young Vic) radio producer Marcia Jeffries and given a platform on her show as the titular face in the crowd or voice of the people.

His folksy way of plain-speaking, embroidering the truth and telling people what they want to hear leads to national acclaim in New York advising a presidential hopeful and its staging in the immediate run up to the latest US election can’t help but draw parallels to the rise of Donald Trump.

Elsewhere Olivier Award-nominated Olly Dobson (Back To The Future, Adelphi) gets the show’s best song as Rhodes’ rival for Jeffries’ attention as scriptwriter Mel with Nice Guys Come Last.

This is a talented cast giving it their all but suddenly the score’s lack of punch becomes emblematic for Mel’s failure to convince Jeffries of his suitability on Don’t Kick Out the Footlights.

Director Kwame Kwei-Armah announced he was stepping down as this venue’s artistic director earlier this year and we look forward to his successor Nadia Fall’s arrival especially given she was born in Southwark to South Asian parents.

We’ve written before about the difficulties of getting into original musicals when we are unfamiliar with the material and on first listen the songs are just not popping.

We’re surprised because it’s not a problem we encountered with Costello’s last musical Cold War at the Almeida almost a year ago.

It may have also had something to do with a script which felt very one-dimensional with very little backstory to any of the characters which left us struggling to find anyone to empathise with.

Baffling then that a musical with such a great idea at its heart and name writers, director and cast could promise so much and yet deliver so little.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Young Vic Tickets
• Have you seen a Young Vic show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below Enjoyed this preview? Follow monstagigz on Twitter @NeilDurham, email neildurham3@gmail.com and check us out on Instagram and Facebook