The hit 90s movie is brought to stage and is combined with the songs of Witney Houston to create a hit musical. The Bodyguard live on stage will please fans of both the movie and the songs of Witney. We saw the performance at the Bournemouth Pavilion.
The question is…will you always love this show?
The story of the musical is largely unchanged from the movie, but for a couple of significant differences. For those who don’t know, it follows Oscar nominated singer and actress Rachel Marron, who herself is being followed by a stalker! When she has a creepy letter left for her in her dressing room at a show, her team call in the help of Frank Farmer, who is the titular bodyguard.
The show manages to build nice moments of tension around the stalker character, although doesn’t quite go to the same level of creepiness as the film. There are a couple of jump scares, one of which truly made me jump in my seat. Not bad for a show that ends with a bouncy rendition of I Wanna Dance with Somebody.
Ayden Callaghan, who played Frank in the production we saw, is a bit more generic tough guy than Kevin Costner was in the film, and doesn’t show off the same subtlety as Costner brought to the role. That said, he has the best song in the show. The role of Rachel’s sister is expanded in this version, and this is where the biggest changes to the show come from. We’ll have another article going over the major differences so do check that out.
There’s a kid who played Rachel’s son Fletcher and he was a big hit with the audience and held his own among the adult cast. Zoe Birkett who played Rachel was great in the role and gave it everything it needed. She carries a lot of the show by having the most songs.
The show has a great balance between being a Witney Houston tribute show and the tense stalker story. There are moments where they achieved genuine frights to the audience, and had us on the edge of our seat with the cabin scene.
The show is also great at throwing in humour, but I’ll share what was perhaps a unique story from the performance we saw and may not happen everywhere. During a scene where Frank is laying in bed and Rachel has just slept with him, she sings the song He fills Me Up. Having checked video clips of other performances I’ve seen that the audience don’t always seem to take this in a sexual sense, but they certainly did in Bournemouth. I guess it is the right place for the seaside postcard culture to let people’s minds go dirty.
This was made even funnier when Fletcher asked if Frank would be coming with to the Oscars and one of Rachel’s assistants responded in complaint with ‘Frank comes everywhere’. Again I’m sure this wasn’t intended to sound dirty…but it tore the house down with laughter.
Fans of the movie and fans of Witney Houston in particular will really enjoy the show. It brings the balance of a stalker thriller perfectly with light-hearted humour and wraps it all up in a high budget Witney tribute night. Recommended.
You can get loads more Theatre articles in the Theatre section of the site, and don’t forget to check out all our stage shows on the Extreme Improv XStreamed YouTube Channel and Geek content on the Geek Battle YouTube Channel.
