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Julie Wallis and BrumHour were invited to see Jesus Christ Superstar by the production team.

By Julie Wallis twitter.com/NiceNic63

Jesus Christ Superstar at
The Old Rep

Directed by Chris Passey, music by Tim Rice and lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber

The Old Rep has Jesus Christ Superstar until November 2nd and I highly recommend this amazing production of the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber classic musical.

If you don’t know the story, it centres around Jesus, his friends, his relationship with Mary and the ultimate betrayal by Judas, right up to the crucifixion. The crucifixion scene was cleverly done – it’s just not practical to actually crucify real actors. 

I’m not going to lie, I love Lloyd Webber musicals and I think he was at his very best when he worked with Tim Rice so I am biased towards this particular show. The music is outstanding and last night was breathtaking.

Containing songs like I Don’t Know How To Love Him. What’s the Buzz. Gethsemane and the titular Jesus Christ Superstar. I struggled to reign in my enthusiasm and to keep my own singing down to a whisper.

The singing from Judas (Max Eade) was amongst some of the finest I have heard on stage this year. Jesus himself was played by Dec Foster and much like Max, and Lorna Highley who plays Mary I was enjoying some seriously gifted talent with singing voices worthy of a West End show. I did say “if I had paid £75 to see this in Shaftesbury Avenue, I would not be disappointed” and that tells you all you need to know about the amazing quality of this show.

Dec Foster has a lovely voice, strong and clear with a huge range. I really appreciated Lorna Highley’s voice. I found it gentle, calming and very pure. Perfectly suited to the role of Mary I wish she had had more songs. But the stand out vocal performance came from Max Eade. His huge voice was made for musical theatre and I could listen to him singing all day. 

Louis Wharton as Pontus Pilate, James Luckins as Herod and Matt Pandya as Ciaphas are all worth mentioning for giving such terrific performances.

Did I mention this was a youth production? This BITA production must not be mistaken for an amateur show, it was absolutely every bit as good as anything else I’ve seen this year, it was just a young cast, but certainly full of stars. 

The set is simple, some tents and a huge cross made from scaffolding poles, the outfits are more modern than we are perhaps used to. With the use of denim predominating but the use of t-shirts and jeans really doesn’t affect the quality of this show. I was far too busy enjoying the choreography by Attiye Partridge. This show has a lot of energy but is also very moving. 

The use of a live band was the final flourish to this outstanding piece of musical theatre and the standing ovation came as no surprise. I really enjoyed every moment of this stunning piece of theatre, I only wish there had been an afterparty so I could have met some of the cast because as I said earlier, there were a lot of future stars in this. 

With only three more shows until the end of this run, I do recommend you try to see this. It’s certainly the very best I’ve seen from BITA. Jesus Christ Superstar is at The Old Rep until 2nd November, book tickets >> HERE <<.

This isn’t a sponsored post.

When not blogging theatre for #BrumHour, Julie Wallis can be found on her own blog at redandgoldweb.wordpress.com