Royal Lyceum Theatre 20/3/26
When David Nicholls published his novel ‘One Day’ in 2009, he could surely never have imagined that this bitter sweet love story, beginning on Graduation Day 1988 at Edinburgh University, would spawn a film, a Netflix mega series, and a musical.
Yet here I was, in the Royal Lyceum Theatre, for a performance of shattering brilliance, ‘One Day – the Musical’. The old theatre was utterly transformed into a theatre in the round, with the cast all wearing personal microphones to allow them to sing in any direction. The excellent stage band was in gallery structures behind the proscenium arch but in front of the raked seating built on where the stage normally stands. All was illusion, but also reality, as the story plays out in a series of episodes on St Swithin’s Day, each year after the Graduation night.
The two main characters, Dexter Mayhew (a posh boy with all the advantages and disadvantages of such an upbringing) and Emma Morley (a working class girl from Leeds, who had to struggle to get to university) find themselves together after a riotous graduation night. They part in the morning, and the plot revolves around their changing relationship over the next few years, as we are invited to watch what happens every year on the same day, over a decade.
I won’t tell you much more about the story, as you need to be there to find out the consequences of various events and relationships. Suffice it to say that there are many twists and turns in the plot, and the supremely talented cast take us through the events in an inventive and dazzling production by Max Webster, with choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille, and music by Abner and Amanda Ramirez. The Book of the musical is by David Greig, with additional lyrics by Jeremy Sams.
I had seen the Netflix series, but had no idea how the story would work as a musical, and must admit to initial scepticism. However, right from the beginning, I was swept along in the riot of colour and music on stage, and the transformation of the Lyceum into a Theatre in the Round was absolutely amazing. It must have taken ages and a lot of serious meetings to achieve what was achieved here, and the overwhelming ovation at the end must have been very welcome to the organisers.
Although I can’t reveal the plot, at least I can tell you about the cast, which was uniformly excellent. The production was extremely energetic, and the actors must be exhausted by the end of the show, which lasts a little under three hours with a 20 minute interval. Playing almost every night from 27th February until 19th April, with matinees on Wednesday and Saturday as well, I have literally no idea how the company can keep producing high tempo performances show after show. As a former opera singer, who rarely played more than three shows in a week, the mind boggles. OK, they are singing with mics and not having to project into a big space, but the emotion of singing, acting and dancing must be absolutely exhausting, and the additional range of emotions affecting the two principals must take an enormous amount out of the performers.
David Nicholls’ novel dates from 2009, and covers the period of twenty years since the characters’ graduation in 1988. That era of the late 80s, with Thatcherism, protest, war, easy money but also easy financial loss, all seems like a century ago, a time before the internet, mobile phones, the fall of Communism, Covid etc. It was only a decade after I graduated from St Andrews, and graduates now have a much harder road in life, partly because there are so many more of them. However, the premise still holds – a bunch of bright young things with everything to look forward to, but no idea what might prevail. It was a simpler dilemma then though, and a lot of graduates would have a fairly good idea what life might throw at them. Nonetheless, the same worries about money, career, loneliness, relationships and so forth exist now, and the musical explores many of these themes in an easy and comforting way. When people start to sing about their lives, they become somewhat easier to handle! It is a surprisingly good way to look at life’s problems without reaching for a psychiatrist, and I found myself thinking a lot about life, love and the pursuit of happiness after the show.
Given that this is a musical, and not a psychodrama, I found the characters surprisingly well drawn, and the large cast of singing actors were uniformly excellent. Stand out characters for me were David Birrell and Josefina Gabrielle as Dexter’s parents, poignantly played, and Dan Buckley as Ian, Em’s intermittent love interest, the comedian who isn’t funny and the nice guy who always says the wrong thing. The brilliantly named Miracle Chance, who played Tilly, Em’s best friend, conveyed the rather desperately searching almost-achiever very well. The brash 1980s entrepeneur, Callum, a sort of Scottish Harry Enfield character, was played with a swagger by Peter Hannah.
It is, however, on the two main characters that the show depends for its success, and here we were lucky to have two terrific performers.
Sharon Rose, as Emma, was a knockout, metamorphosing from naive student to successful author via school teaching with studied brilliance, taking us on her journey as faithful observers, and conveying all the myriad ups and downs of life with an easy charm. Utterly convincing as the state school kid with ambition and talent, she also possesses a fabulous blues voice, which she uses to great effect throughout the show, particularly in the first half end number, ‘Em’s One Day.’
Jamie Muscato as Dexter Mayhew was, for me, the star of the show. He has a huge emotional range to convey, from student star, through drunken 80s drug addict and TV personality, to self knowledge and, hopefully, self awareness at last. Looking and sounding frighteningly like Hugh Grant, he completely surprised me by coming out with a sweet mellifluous haute-contre voice, an easy light tenor which mixes into countertenor falsetto with ease. I know that sounds utterly pretentious, and worthy of Private Eye’s Pseud’s Corner, but I know voices and this is a gem. With a mic and no need to project, he can afford to sing sweetly throughout, and he does. Fortunately he has been given excellent music to sing by the writing duo of Abner and Amanda Ramirez (known oddly as JOHNNYSWIM), and here is a good time to congratulate them on their superb music for the show. I’m not sure if it will become a classic, but the score seemed to me very well constructed and all the songs fitted the occasion expertly. Jamie Muscato was able to belt out the music too, when necessary, and one could see why he has been nominated for and awarded many honours in the musical business.
My old friend and one time accompanist, Jeremy Sams, is credited with ‘Additional Lyrics’. I know not what they were and when they appeared, but there were a fair few good ones, so Bravo Jeremy!
The band, tucked away in their minstrels’ galleries, were uniformly excellent, directed by Nigel Lilley, and the whole production was fantastically slick. With a double turntable on stage, there are multiple opportunities for disaster (I have done operas with a double turntable and you cannot relax for a micro-second or you will be thrown into the audience), and the scene changing and costume changing, all performed by the cast in front of us, was a miracle of co-ordination. Having one of the cast called Miracle perhaps helped!
The show continues until 19th April. It’s one of the shows of the year. Don’t miss it!
photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic