Twopenny Theatre

Is there something about Wyndham’s Theatre that attracts complicated family dramas? Last season it was Long Day’s Journey Into Night, this winter it’s Oedipus, and right now it’s the premiere West End production of Next To Normal, an arresting musical about a family living with bipolar disorder.

Technically only one person in the family is diagnosed with bipolar – the mother, Diana (Caissie Levy) – but Next to Normal is a show dedicated to exploring its impacts not only on Diana, but her whole family: husband Dan (Jamie Parker), daughter Natalie (Lizzy Parker at our performance), and son Gabe (Jack Wolfe). Dan wants to help Diana to get better, Diana wants to get off the carousel of medical interventions, and Natalie wants some of the parental attention and affection typically reserved for Gabe – not to mention a family she’s not scared to bring new boyfriend Henry (Jack Ofrecio) back to. 

With a weighty subject and a first-act twist that further complicates the family dynamic, it’s a marvel that Brian Yorkey’s script drifts into neither melodrama nor moralising. Yet even as characters come into conflict with each other, it’s clear that nobody is unloving or uncaring (with the potential exception of Diana’s indifferent first psychiatrist, Dr. Fine [Trevor Dion Nicholas]). Rather, everyone is doing their best to care for Diana and themselves, amidst significant personal trauma. Even in the final scenes, when the story is best poised to take a side, it tactfully refrains. If there’s any agenda here, it’s empathy.

Next to Normal first premiered on Broadway in 2009. Fifteen years later, in its first West End production, it’s remarkable how fresh it still feels. While understanding and classifications of bipolar disorder have shifted, the delicate dance of medication adjustments (captured in the darkly humorous “My Psychopharmacologist and I”) and sensation of losing of self (expressed in the folk-rock elegy “I Miss the Mountains”) remain familiar to many with first-hand experience of the condition. Tom Kitt’s music, too, continues to pack a punch, deftly shifting between subgenres of rock to best punctuate the honesty in Yorkey’s lyrics. Performed by actors who can both blend and belt, backed by instrumentalists visible on the upper floor of Diana and Dan’s home (designed by Chloe Lamford), the music fills both the theatre and the imagination. While the songs are integral to the narrative, several of them have enough poetic heft that they’re just good rock songs in their own right.

In many ways Next to Normal is an exercise in contradictions – powerful in its score, gentle to its characters; honest in its tragedy, yet still with a steadfast kernel of hope. Perhaps its greatest achievement, then, is imitating life well – in all its highs and lows. This is a worthy, winsome watch.

Rating: 4.5/5

The Best Deal: £25 Rush tickets via TodayTix.