This review contains spoilers for a 35-year-old film.
Having seen Amy Lennox in Cabaret and Rachel Tucker in Into the Woods, I went into Thelma & Louise with high expectations of its leading women. Neither disappointed me. Their voices are phenomenal, their acting is just as good, and together they give this musical an enormous amount of heart. The show around them takes a little longer to find its feet.
Callie Khouri has adapted her own film for the Young Vic, with music and lyrics by Neko Case and direction by Trip Cullman. Two friends head off for a weekend away, only for a violent encounter at a roadside bar to turn their holiday into a desperate escape. It’s a fight for freedom in a world where neither woman expects a fair hearing.
Christine Jones and Brett J. Banakis’s set is an authentic looking American bar stretching across the space, full of dark corners, with the band visible on balconies above either side. The opening numbers are great fun, with lively, line-dance-style choreography by Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber. A little yeehaw goes a long way.
But there’s one fundamental frustration: this is a road movie turned into a musical in which you never really see the driving. Natasha Chivers’s lighting does much of the travelling for them, sending strips of light across the walls to suggest the passing miles. It’s a cool effect, but I missed the sense of being in that car with them. We arrive at each destination, yet the journey itself feels oddly absent.
Lennox’s Thelma has spent her life being a good girl, trapped in a marriage that has given her little chance to discover who she might be. Her excitement about getting away makes her encounter with awful Harlan especially horrible. The attempted rape is exceptionally well performed. A pool table stands in for a car bonnet, but I forgot that substitution as the attack unfolded. It felt horribly real. Tamlyn Henderson makes Harlan deeply unsettling, and is equally convincing when he returns as FBI agent Max.
When Louise shoots Harlan, I knew it was coming, but my hands still flew to my mouth. The bang is shocking; Lennox and Tucker’s reactions make it land…hard. The fear, the disbelief, and the understanding that everything has changed are all there. Their responses afterwards are equally compelling. Tucker’s Louise is constantly on edge, painfully aware of what she has done. Lennox’s Thelma begins to discover a freedom she has never experienced before – and a love of bourbon. Louise is trying to keep them alive; Thelma is finally starting to feel alive. That tension gives their friendship real weight.
There’s plenty of fun too, including a wonderfully silly motel pool scene with what looked suspiciously like a Saltburn bathwater joke. Samuel Edwards is very funny as Thelma’s husband, Darryl, whose disbelief reveals how little he knows her. His casual misogyny and wounded certainty are beautifully judged.
Jordan Luke Gage is sexy, persuasive, and great fun as hitchhiker JD. I last saw him in his own musical, Redcliffe, which I really enjoyed. Taking on Brad Pitt’s film role creates pressure in the looks department. Fortunately, Gage is a very beautiful man. He manages admirably.
His seduction song left me less convinced. ‘I bet your mouth tastes like fireworks and caramel’ is cheesy enough, but ‘I’d gnaw your bones and sip your marrow if you let me’ had me questioning whether Thelma should let him anywhere near her. There’s passionate, and then there’s whatever the hell that is!
Alex Gibson-Giorgio brings warmth to Jimmy, Louise’s boyfriend, and their affection is touching and believable. Their love song, though, feels tonally disconnected from what has come before. That became a recurring issue. Some songs have great energy or reveal something meaningful; others feel like the last thing a scene needs. During a police interrogation, I wondered why Hal and Max were singing at each other. I know, it’s a musical. I LOVE a musical. But even in a musical a conversation can sometimes do the job better.
Trevor Dion Nicholas is excellent as Hal, the detective pursuing the women. His sensitivity and kindness make his desire to help entirely convincing, despite being part of the system working against them. Letitia Hector brings warmth to his wife, Sarah, and their relationship is sweet and believable as they talk through the case. She also gets a memorable observation: ‘what a man calls a ladies’ man, a woman calls a creep’.
Lennox makes Thelma’s growing confidence a joy to watch. A number about being on the other side of the gun captures that rush of power brilliantly. Suddenly she’s sexy, commanding, and in control. Watching it, I thought: this is why Americans won’t let go of their guns.
The staging has some good ideas, including effective rain, a clever transition into the desert, and beautiful stars courtesy of Chivers’s lighting. The pool table becomes a motel bed too. Some transformations work better than others, but there’s fun inventiveness here.
Tucker’s later solo, touching on Louise’s own experience of assault, is vulnerable, painful, and beautifully sung. I wanted space afterwards to process it, perhaps a conversation between the women or simply time to sit with what we had heard. Instead, Thelma launches straight into another song.
The show doesn’t always give its emotional moments room to breathe. By the time Hal tells the women to run, only for them to hang around singing about being alive, I was impatient. You’re not going to stay alive for very long if you keep stopping for another number!
Yet their friendship keeps pulling me back. Louise’s observation that Thelma has always been crazy, but never had the chance to express herself, is funny, affectionate, and full of understanding. These women know each other intimately, and I believed in them.
There’s a lot to enjoy in Thelma & Louise. The performances are fantastic, and some scenes genuinely moved me. I just think the musical needs more work. Lennox and Tucker could drive this show anywhere, if it would just stop pulling over for yet another song.
Thelma & Louise is playing at the Young Vic until 24 October 2026.
Book your tickets at youngvic.org
Words Nick Barr
Photography Helen Murray
