Bronco Billy the Musical review

Packed with offbeat characters and focusing on the rocky romance between Billy and Antoinette, Hackin’s script is an uplifting, screwball comedy that is as charming as it is witty. Chip Rosenbloom and John Torres’ songs, with additional lyrics from Michele Brourman, are a mixed bag, however. They are uplifting, yet never quite reflect the diversity of the plot, nor do they embrace the production’s disco/country hybrid. Bird’s staging has pace and plenty of low-tech special effects that add to the fun, but despite some fine singing and broad comedy, the show never takes off.

There is also little genuine chemistry between its leading man Tarinn Callender, lending a meaty baritone to Billy, and Emily Benjamin’s self-assured Antoinette. It is a romance that never quite rings true, despite both performers grasping the comedy value and bringing sensitivity to the more anodyne musical numbers. At the other end of the scale, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt is hilariously on point as wicked stepmother Constance. Snapping and snarling her way through the silliest of plot twists, Hamilton-Barritt’s dipsomaniac matriarch is a riotous cross between Madeline Kahn and Myra DuBois.

Sarah Mercade’s costume designs capture both period and social status, and despite the restricted space Amy Jane Cook’s set design offers ingenious solutions to the challenge of suggesting multiple locations. Yet there is an overwhelming sense that this simple, heartwarming story is overproduced. The company of performers work hard to bring it to life, but it is hemmed in by its own staging.