Come Rain or Come Shine review – a fine cast shines in Tim Finn’s clunky musical

‘Come Rain or Come Shine ends not with a bang but a whimper, as the characters realise big truths about friendship and ageing, or something like that.’ Photograph: Jeff Busby/Photo©Jeff Busby

Forgive me for starting this review with a quote from a naff film – 500 Days of Summer – but watching Come Rain or Come Shine, I was reminded of this line: “Just because she likes the same bizarro crap you do doesn’t mean she’s your soulmate.” For Melbourne Theatre Company’s new musical hinges on a friendship born from a mutual love of the Great American Songbook – and not much else.

Here’s the gist of it: old souls Ray (Angus Grant) and Emily (Gillian Cosgriff) bond at university in the 1970s over their shared obsession with the likes of Ray Charles and Sarah Vaughan. Ray’s dropkick housemate Charlie (Chris Ryan) doesn’t care for the music, much preferring sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. But it’s Charlie who marries Emily, both becoming dull corporate types, while Ray lives an eternal vagabond adolescence as an ESL teacher in Spain.