Today, Terry Ronald is a successful writer, songwriter and producer (working with the likes of Kylie Minogue and Sheena Easton). Back in 1979, though, he was a bullied gay teenager at a south London secondary school. When he was invited to play the role of Nancy in the school production of Oliver!, he bottled the challenge. The thought of the ratcheting up of “the verbal abuse and the taunting” he was already enduring was too scary. The poppy, feelgood musical Becoming Nancy is based on Ronald’s “deliciously camp” 2012 coming-of-age novel, in which he imagines what might have happened if he had said “Yes”.
Positivity radiates from the stage, along with an endearing if simplistic American-style optimism (the show opened in Atlanta in 2019; for its UK premiere, Ronald has provided additional material). So what if the 70s London setting feels as authentic as Dick Van Dyke’s cockney chimney sweep in Mary Poppins, and characterisations have as much depth as cardboard cutouts. The top creative team (book by Elliot Davis; music and lyrics by longstanding collaborators George Stiles and Anthony Drewe; direction and choreography by Jerry Mitchell) is not aiming for complexity. Racist, homophobic bullies may threaten, but friendship and love (romantic and familial) will prevail, to the boom-boom beat of high-energy numbers such as Big Night Tonight, and the strings-and-keyboard soul-searchings of Where Do We Go from Here? (under Sarah Burrell’s precise musical direction – let down, at times, by poor sound balance).
What matters here is that we empathise with the hero, David, and his allies; that we feel inspired, empowered to take The Risk and to be, like them, true to ourselves.
A winning cast conveys the message with conviction. Special mention to Joseph Peacock as David, Paige Peddie as his best friend and Joseph Vella as his football-captain heartthrob. Particularly stunning vocals from Rebecca Trehearn (David’s mother) and duet harmonies from Daisy Greenwood (David’s faux-girlfriend) and Genevieve Nicole (Aunt Val).
Becoming Nancy is at Birmingham Rep until 2 November.
