Jukebox musicals tend to be all about the feelgood factor. It’s ambitious, then, that David West Read – the writer of & Juliet – has chosen to use Roy Orbison’s songs to consider the experiences of death and grief.
We meet Kenna (Lena Hall), a singer-songwriter, just after she has received a life-altering – and potentially life-ending – diagnosis. As she confronts her own mortality, Kenna decides to memorialise herself ahead of time by throwing a party at Felices Sueños, a family-run Mexican restaurant specialising in tacos, margaritas and celebrations of the dead. With some help from the owners, and without revealing the true reason for the reunion, Kenna assembles her former bandmates Ramsey (Oliver Tompsett), Jane (Sian Reese-Williams) and Donovan (Noël Sullivan) for a “going away” party.
Within this structure, the show works hard to pack in as many Orbison hits as possible. Read does a good job of coherently stringing the songs together, yet it sometimes feels as though the dialogue – entertaining though much of it is – serves simply to launch us from one familiar tune to the next. That said, Luke Sheppard’s production does some gorgeous, playful things with the music. Two standouts – for very different reasons – are old flame Ramsey’s hilariously hammed-up rendition of I Drove All Night and Kenna’s raw, heart-rending version of Crying.
In Dreams also packs in an abundance of storylines. Each person Kenna encounters has their own subplot, from restaurant owner Oscar’s grief for his parents to the revelation that the chef at Felices Sueños is a super-fan of Heartbreak Radio, Kenna’s old band. There are a lot of strands to hold together and the eventual tying of all these loose ends is somewhat perfunctory. With such a proliferation of characters, it’s hard to invest in the stakes of all their individual dramas.
The show is best when focusing on the quartet of one-time bandmates as they reminisce about the past and come to terms with the present. It’s all rather earnest, but the charm of the performances and the strength of the music just about carry it through to a conclusion that is – despite the subject matter – feelgood after all.
In Dreams is at Leeds Playhouse until 5 August
