Gillian Lynne Theatre, til 3 August 2024

⭐⭐⭐

Excellent music but middling story makes this musical good but not great.

It seems that every few months something is dubbed the “greatest new [musical/film/novel/play] in the UK in decades.” (In Australia we have the same trend; it’s usually a novel or TV series and the basic premise is almost always ‘middle class people are sad.’) I’m not sure this ever does said musical/film/etc any favours, because all it does is ensure your audience is coming in with grand expectations. I think this was unfortunately the case for me watching Standing At The Sky’s Edge, winner of the Olivier award for best new musical in 2023. This isn’t a bad musical, by any means, and I enjoyed it; but my experience was somewhat tinged by the hype I felt it never quite lived up to.

While we’re on the topic of my biases (though I always try to be objective, it’s inevitable my own experiences and tastes will shape my reviews) it’s probably worth mentioning that I’m a fairly anti-romantic person. I have a very low tolerance for sentiment, which is pretty core to this production. What I saw as a lack of subtlety and, well, corniness, might be more appealing to a viewer with a different mindset. 

Set in the real Sheffield mega-estate Park Hill, Sky’s Edge concurrently tells the stories of the different occupants of a single flat over three time periods (starting in the 1960s, 1989 and 2015). Our three sets of protagonists are not-so-subtle embodiments of the historical eras in which they live: white working-class couple Harry and Rose fall on hard times in the post-industrial years; Liberian refugee Joy has to find her own sense of home with local lad Jimmy; and highly-strung Londoner Poppy rebuilds her life after a nasty breakup. 

The split across the three generations is effectively done, with characters wandering in and out of each other’s pasts and futures. I particularly enjoyed a scene where three evening meals, separated by time, are happening at the same table, and a touching moment when one of the characters relives a conversation from her childhood. Each story is given equal weight and none feels short-shrifted, an accomplishment no doubt of both of book-writer Chris Bush and director Robert Hastie. There is a very strong sense of time and place through the large chorus of ever-changing extras and the magnificent set – all credit must go to set and costume designer Ben Stones for recreating the brutalist concrete monolith, which towers over the stage.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling that as a gimmick the time-split never really pays off as much as it could. Ostensibly, its purpose is to use the everyday lives of these ordinary people to tell the broader story of modern Britain (or at least, modern Sheffield). And yet, I feel the story of each era has been told better elsewhere. Without wanting to sound heartless, Harry’s decline as Thatcherism steals his livelihood was the least affecting of the three plotlines to me as it felt so unoriginally told – right down to the Thatcher speeches on the radio and fruitless union meetings. The other two I found a little more interesting, though they too lean on the standard tropes you might find in a forgettable Netflix series (the return of the mysterious ex, the strain of unforgiving work hours on a long-term relationship). In contrast to Harry’s tale of woe, the broader link to British culture is indistinct enough in these two stories that we have to be spoon-fed it, either through shoehorned references (such as Poppy going electioneering for no good reason) or by a highly irritating narrator who is entirely superfluous and speaks in agonising cliches. I also found myself really unsatisfied with the ending of these two storylines – I won’t spoil anything, so much as I might make this note to the writer: having one of your characters describe what’s happening as “Richard Curtis bullshit” doesn’t excuse you from indulging in Richard Curtis bullshit! 

While I found it all a bit uninspiring, it wasn’t unenjoyable. The three-story split allows us to breezily power along at a decent pace, and I did notice plenty of decent jokes that are a cut above standard musical kitsch (at the risk of telling on myself, I laughed especially hard at Poppy describing herself as “the sort of woman people buy gin for”). Undoubtedly where Sky’s Edge shines is in the music. It’s an interesting approach for a musical, because (as far as I could tell) the music from Richard Hawley (an enormously accomplished solo and session artist) wasn’t written for the musical itself, but rather pulled from his back catalogue and inserted into the show as a sort of live soundtrack. Each song is essentially a music break, thematically matched to the moment rather than diegetic. Sky’s Edge has a better ratio of hits-to-misses than most productions, and brilliant performances from the cast and musicians mean the music side of it all is highly entertaining. The first act closer and second act opener make for a properly enjoyable one-two punch, helped along by a banging electric guitar solo.

Overall, it certainly wasn’t a bad night at the theatre, and if you’re a fan of relationship drama (or Richard Curtis, I suppose) Sky’s Edge might be your new favourite musical. For me, it didn’t quite live up to the promise of being a deep exploration of British life, but a few good jokes and fantastic music made it worth the price of admission.