Brighton Year-Round 2026
The Ballad of Johnny & June
Trafalgar Theatre Productions, The Dodgers, Paul Dainty – TEG Dainty, Rupert Gavin, Mallory Factor, La Jolla Playhouse
Genre: Adaptation, American Theater, Biographical Drama, Historical, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
In 2024 Robert Cary and Des McAnuff – using Johnny Cash’s music with his son John Carter Cash as story consultant – premiered their musical of his life with his second wife June. Though it’s not as simple as that. Touring nationally, The Ballad of Johnny & June directed by McAnuff plays at Theatre Royal Brighton till April 18.
That rare event: a new musical with classic inscribed on it. Outstanding.
Review
“You don’t know this but someday I gonna marry you” is an arresting chat-up line for 1956. Is it true though? We get three versions of the greatest romance in folk-music history before we know. In 2024 Robert Cary and Des McAnuff – using Johnny Cash’s music with his son John Carter Cash as story consultant – premiered their musical of his life with his second wife June. Though it’s not as simple as that. Touring nationally, The Ballad of Johnny & June directed by McAnuff plays at Theatre Royal Brighton till April 18.
As for truth, time’s bendy here. The tale is twisty too and of course you don’t let truth get in the way of a good story as Carter Cash winks: though it’s accurate enough. Few dates guide us, though Sean Nieuwenhuis’ overwhelmingly precise rolling place-names for tours projects above Robert Brill’s versatile shack-like and clever set – opening and closing with slats. Those place-names work particularly for a U.S. audience, and include shrewd bolt-holes to Canada when Cash’s life cuts up a bit rough. It’s lit with gulphs of dark and quiet by Amanda Zieeve with a clean and not overly reverberant sound design by Peter Fitzgerald. Sarafina Bush’s costumes neatly suggest the 1950s though costumes don’t update themselves, as country music is one genre they never need to. The UK team listed below also tweak their US creative colleagues.
In one sense it seems a very concentrated affair. The son John Carter Cash played by a gently laconic Ryan O’Donnell engages with the audience fourth-walling throughout, often on guitar. Christopher Ryan Grant’s Johnny Cash not only looks like Cash to a degree, his superbly burnished bass-baritone penetrates into every inch of Cash’s vocal register: and his often calm, sometimes explosive inhabiting of Cash is on occasion uncanny. Only the broken majesty of Cash’s last phase finds Grant understandably not as broken-voiced. Christina Bianco’s June Carter sings too with a stratospheric folksy tessitura that’s as frankly unbelievable as it is penetrating.
Celebrated for inhabiting a dizzying variety of vocal roles, Bianco’s natural soprano emulates a soubrette range: with a twang like a steel chord. Bianco too shows how June fought against the obvious. She delivers June’s family pedigree with fast-talking brio. June was at first the more famous artist; the Carters were Country’s first family for over three decades from 1927 and are still going, forever linked to Cash. But unlike anyone else June was a comedian too and Bianco’s performance dazzles against the thrubbing soul of country: and Cash’s more religious roots.
These three named characters, all exceptional musicians, are augmented by three men and three women only given generic roles like “Man 2” and “Woman 3” but multi-roling superbly, with a further four swings. Christopher Short plays Johnny’s ill-fated brother and his loyal musical colleague John, Chomba S Taulo plays Luther, one of Cash’s two loyal musicians, Peter Peverley, Cash’s father, the radio station owner giving a first break, and other roles including wielding a mean drumkit. The women too take a primary role, and all sing as the carter family or individually. Deep soprano Abigail Matthews is Cash’s first wife Vivian: who inspired his early hit ‘I Walked the Line’. Matthews shows Vivian’s warmth pressured by Cash’s diverging lifestyle after their giddy romance conducted by letter when he spent four years in the Air Force. Her Catholic faith allowing no divorce is tested beyond the limit. In real life, southern racism meant the couple had to prove Vivian was white with a certificate!
Anne-Marie Wojna, Celyn Cartwright is June Carter’s sister with a wholly different lyric soprano voice, heard to memorable effect in the first version of ‘Ring of Fire’ mainly written by June. Cash waited six months to let it make its way and the rest as they say, is a voice. Swings Denis Gindel, Mia Jae, Michael Mahoney, Lenny Turner complete the musical line-up: all the performers can play a musical instrument. Over a dozen classic standards are there, including ‘A Boy Named Sue’ allowing a rare comic gusto, delivered by Ryan Grant with a faster tempo than I’ve heard: it works.
Several play throughout, though the band deserves a mention. Director and keyboard Connagh Tonkinson, Trumpet Morgan Rees, Electric Guitar Nick Hill, Acoustic Guitar Benedict Wood, Bass Jihea Oh, Drums Zach Okonkwo.
The first half rattles along fairly relentlessly, telling Johnny and June by lightning. The second act though allows the feeling to pulse in moments of stillness, heartbreak and even silence. Cash’s demons, his addiction-fuelled treatment of colleagues and loved ones isn’t flinched; nor merely glanced at. O’Donnell’s Carter Cash – always quipping coupledom to the audience – wisecracks sadly that this happy ending comes in the middle. Though it’s not tragedy we experience. The great song ‘Hurt’ with “You can have it all/this empire of dirt/I will let you down/I will make you hurt’ is delivered by Ryan Grant with all the nuances: though naturally he can’t inhabit the gaunt valediction of Cash’s last sessions.
Though it’s worth diving into the biography to find out how McAnuff and Carter Cash streamline the bare facts, this is an overwhelmingly truthful two hours twenty: the effect on performers is visible – and audible. Naturally much had to be left out or compressed but nothing essential. With a spectacularly gifted cast, a theatrically consummate, witty and heartfelt storyline – and those songs – this is that rare event: a new musical with classic inscribed on it. Outstanding.
Keyboard Programming Mark Dickman, Randy Cohen, Orchestral Management BW Musicians Ltd, Music Copyist Russ Anixter.
Music Supervisor/Arranger/Co-orchestrator Ron Melrose, Co-orchestrator Joe Payne, Choreographer Byron Easley, Wig Designer Alberto ‘Albee’ Alvarado, Casting Director Serena Hill, UK Associate Director and Choreographer Dayle Hodge, UK Associate Sound Designer Kelsh Buchman-Drage, Costumer Supervisor and UK Associate Costume Designer Emily Corner, WHAM Supervisor UK Designer Suzy Barrett, UK Associate Music Supervisor Ben Atkinson, Production Management Setting Line, Dialect Coach, Charley Layton, Intimacy Director Yarit Dor, Resident Director Max Reynolds.
