Shucked at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre: 'laugh-out loud sunshine'

Sophie McShera as Maizy and some of the cast in Shucked - (Pamela Raith)

Summer may not have fully arrived for the start of the Open Air theatre’s season, but this Tony award-winning musical comedy delivers a burst of nourishing, laugh-out-loud sunshine. With a wisecrack-packed book by Robert Horn and a wry, country-inflected score by Grammy winners Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally, it’s a fable of simple folk in the American south forced to turn outwards – to a charlatan from Florida, no less – when the corn crop around which their entire lives are based fails.

Jack O’Brien’s irresistibly eager-to-please production has a basic but stunning set by Scott Pask of a wonkily skeletal barn surrounded by cornstalks, and unspectacular hoedown choreography from Sarah O’Gleby. But as one character puts it: “There’s a cornfield of difference between simple and stupid.” I’m surprised Shucked did so well on Broadway, where I thought they preferred their musicals high-minded or razzamatazzy; but relentlessly chirpy gags and songs, the deliberate mix of naivete and snark from the cast, and the juxtaposition of rural and urban life sit perfectly in this leafy venue.