A rock musical about mental illness? Well, we weren't quite sure what we were letting ourselves in for as we took our seats last night at the Donmar Warehouse in London's glitzy West End - but we needn't have worried. It was corker. Great songs, a powerful story, big twists and courage, wit and empathy aplenty.
The setting starts with a suburban family's daily routine but soon expands the very scope of subject matter for musicals.
In this new production (and it's had a long and successful life on Broadway) directed by Michael Longhurst, we see Caissie Levy play the lead role of the mother Diana Goodman. Jamie Parker plays her husband Dan. And their children Gabe and Natalie are played by Jack Wolfe and Eleanor Worthington Cox.
The singing is all top notch and the live five-piece band who hover above the action are excellent.
I won't give any of the plot away but there are plenty of trigger warnings before you go in; someone fainted towards the end of the first act and had to be removed, and Stuart had lots of comments about how realistic some of the medical procedures were!
If you like your musicals to be different, challenging, full of life, funny and very rewarding - this is the show for you.
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