Review: CAROLINE at Hornchurch Theatre delves into pirate radio's enduring legacy

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New musical plays hit after hit after hit

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There have been films of course, notably The Boat That Rocked , but amongst the slew of jukebox musicals that have played the West End and beyond in the last 25 years, I find myself unaware of one focused on the brief, but blazing, pirate radio boom of the mid-60s. God knows, there’s enough great songs for the score!

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Indeed, it’s one of the virtues of Vikki Stones’ book that it doesn’t try to do too much and sink the show before it sets sail with the trite characterisations, a sluggish plot and a thin premise that consign many a show like this to the depths. “This would be better as a gig or a tribute show” is a damning, but all too common first thought about a new musical, always one of the hardest tricks to pull off in a theatre.

We’re dropped off in the grey world of provincial 60s England. London may be swinging with Mary Quant defining style in Carnaby Street and The Beatles and Rolling Stones reinterpreting black American music for a white British audience in the smart clubs and on TV's Jukebox Jury , but that’s all a long way from Friday night chips on Clacton Pier.

Robbie knows that, but he hangs out at the record shop when not halfheartedly applying for jobs and gets many a hit from the hits on the seven inch discs. His girlfriend, Caroline (natch!), works in a fruit and veg shop, with expectations of settling down - working class girls did then, even in their early 20s - but she’s smart and understands the new world of youth culture better than most.

Not as well as Declan and Kitty though. They see the emerging youth culture and its financial muscle and know that if they can tap into it, the advertisers will follow. Their key is a boat anchored off coast (so outside the not-so-long arm of the law) that broadcasts to millions of transistor radios in kids’ bedrooms and housewives' kitchens. But Whitehall doesn’t care for these ‘pirates’ and wages an attritional war against them, Radio Caroline in particular, and eventually closes them down. Instead, it launches Radio One (on 275 and 285 Medium Wave, a detail I did not need to look up.)

The first half of the show is largely devoted to Robbie’s escape offshore, his bad jokes as a DJ (yes, there’s more than a touch of Tony Blackburn in him - and Tony Blackburn was, and still is, a great DJ). Soon teenybopper adulation and money come his way, but the hours are long. Jake Halsey-Jones captures Robbie's unexpected dream-come-true and delivers his songs surrounded by a company of virtuoso actor-musicians who rotate through different instruments and the support parts at a dizzying pace.

The show comes more into its own in the second half, in which Claire Lee Shenfield ’s Caroline becomes the focus, married (well kinda sorta) on the boat itself, and with a baby on the way. Her vocals are marvellous, as strong as any you would hear on a West End stage, and she also pulls off the difficult trick of investing familiar songs with the emotional heft Musical Theatre demands.

In that task, Shenfield is assisted considerably by director, Douglas Rintoul and musical supervisor, Paul Schofield ’s, arrangements, which often slow the tempo of well known tunes to allow pathos to come through. Truth be told, the production could lean more into its musical theatre ethos and mix the music back a little to let the voices come through more strongly. A pop song, even a great one like, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” can compress its story into three marvellous minutes, but a musical has to link the songs and find a narrative thread between them - for that, we really need to hear them loud (advisedly) and clear (essentially).

Other bangers in the mix include a beautiful “You’re My World” (would that Cilla could sing it like that!), a rockin’ slice of working class life to open the show with The Kinks’ “Dead End Street” and a tender version of Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted”. It’s always a delight in a show like this not to know the set list (so to speak) in order to be surprised by the next fab song and by how it’s worked into the story.

Half way through a regional tour, it’s not difficult to see this show, with a tweak here and there, going into a mid-sized venue in London or touring UK wide. Keep Ms Shenfield's super Caroline and maybe give her more to do than complain about her chips in the first half, and perhaps find a little more humour in the tale, and there’s plenty of bums will line up for seats given that soundtrack.

Caroline at Hornchurch Theatre until 16 May and on tour

Photo images: Will Green

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/Review-CAROLINE-Hornchurch-Theatre-20260511)._