Based on the much loved novel by James Leo Herlihy which inspired the triple Academy Award-winning 1969 film starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, Midnight Cowboy – A New Musical is a tender and searing exploration of the tension between loneliness and love.
A tender and searing exploration of the tension between loneliness and love.
We follow the story of Joe Buck, a Southern States cowboy who wants to reinvent himself as a New York hustler. From the moment Buck steps onto the greyhound bus to New York, we know it's not going to be as easy as he imagines to turn his handsome good looks and substantial natural gifts into cold hard cash, and his plan to seduce money out of the city's wealthy women quickly falls apart, leaving him on a downward spiral of desperation.
In this depression that he meets Rico Ratso Rizzo, played by a scrawny, shuffling Max Bowen. Equally lonely and desperate, their dive bar conversation quickly exposes Buck's southern boy innocence as Rizzo grifts him out of $20. But the magnetic pull between these two characters is too strong. They complete each other, as all great double acts do, and a strange symbiotic friendship blossoms. He’s a stranger in the urban landscape while Rico is born to the city and is at home (literally) with the rats and cockroaches.
Everybody will be expecting to hear the famous song from the movie soundtrack Everybody's Talkin', and they won’t be disappointed, but the new songs are also engaging. The soundtrack by three-time Ivor Novello Award-winning composer Francis “Eg” White is rich in 60s and 70s vibes, giving us some funk and soul sounds alongside the country rhythms.
EastEnders actor Max Bowden impresses as the twitchy, limping Rizzo, while Paul Jacob French as Joe Buck utterly convinces as the wannabe hustler with lessons to learn. His singing voice is beautifully controlled, transitioning from clear pure tones at the start to rough deep gutteral sounds as his character discovers new emotional depths.
Tori Allen-Martin (BBC's Here We Go) as Cass has perfect comic timing in every scene. Although the female characters are largely two dimensional, she invests each of the characters she played with heart, humour and truth.
Directed and choreographed by Nick Winston, this world premiere feels timely, reminding us of the alienation of urban life and the desperate need for connection men in particular can experience.
