The Ballad of Johnny & June – a love story that requires courage
Few love stories in the history of popular music can match Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash for sheer drama. Over ninety million records sold. A famous on-stage marriage proposal. A relationship forged in chaos and sustained through addiction, faith, determination and an extraordinary musical partnership.
And all of it told here through the eyes of their son, John Carter Cash, who has been closely involved in bringing this new musical to the stage, from its origins in LA through to its current UK and Ireland tour.
The Story
June Carter Cash’s roots run deep: she was performing as part of the singing Carter Family from the age of ten, an icon in her own right, long before Cash entered the picture. Their meeting backstage (the precise details of which vary somewhat depending on whose version you believe) would change both their lives. His famous live proposal. Their 1968 marriage. The soaring highs and heartbreaking lows that would define not just their personal lives but American music.
The Ballad of Johnny & June tells this story with a catalogue of hits to match: Walk the Line, Ring of Fire, Jackson, Hey Porter, I’ve Been Everywhere are all performed with the commitment they deserve. The music is the show’s greatest asset and it never lets you forget why these two are legends.
What it is less willing to do is go to the darker places of the story. The ending arrives too quickly, glossing over details that feel important and leaving a gap that a quick Google search on the way home will fill in rather more comprehensively than the musical does. This is the inevitable consequence of having the couple’s son so closely involved. Some things, understandably, he may not wish to explore on stage. The result, however, is a show that feels curated rather than honest and I feel it could have given much more.
There could be a version of this musical that opens at the end: Cash’s devastating, late-career cover of Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt, all the pain and weight of a lifetime compressed into one song. Then rewind. Let John Carter Cash tell the story from the beginning. That show could be extraordinary. This one, in its current form, is good but very safe.
The Cast
Christopher Ryan Grant has played Cash since the show’s earliest days in LA and it shows – he embodies Cash entirely and the performance is faultless. Interestingly, Cash feels secondary here in this story. It feels much more like a son’s love letter to his mother and there is something quietly moving about that.
Christina Bianco as June Carter Cash is a genius. Her comedic instincts are razor-sharp (those who saw her as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl will not be surprised) and her vocals are extraordinary, blending beautifully with Grant’s in their duets and absolutely demolishing the room when given a solo. No Swallerin’ is a highlight that stops the show in its tracks and makes the audience sit up and listen. This is a performance that deserves the very best material the musical can offer it.
The sound and lighting seemed a little off at the performance I saw, with microphones being turned on a second too late and spotlights not always hitting the way they should but this could have been for any number of reasons.
The Ballad of Johnny & June has wonderful performances, iconic songs and a love story at its heart that is genuinely worth telling – it just needs the courage, in its writing, to tell all of it.
★★★
Reviewed by West End Wilma
