The inspiration for this jukebox musical, last seen in the West End in 2011, is a famous photograph taken in the Sun Records studio in Memphis on 4 December 1956. It shows Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, the Million Dollar Quartet who give this show its name, on the day they all came together for a jam session.
Writers Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux have imagined what might have happened at this historic moment, when the four biggest stars in rock ‘n’ roll music found themselves in the same studio at the same time, under the paternal gaze of producer and mentor Sam Phillips. He had an eye for moulding personalities and coaxing talent out of youngsters who were hungry for fame.
Darren Day is cast as Phillips. Despite his own musical pedigree, he doesn’t sing a note but acts as narrator for what story there is, and is an interested observer as the four men engage with the songs that come thick and fast through the two-hour running time. If you know the songs of the period, you will be delighted at the sound quality and the musicianship on display.
The four actor-musicians who play the legends (Connor Payne – Presley, Christopher Erasmus – Cash, Joey Bradick – Perkins, and Joe Bence – Lewis) display significant energy and engagement with their characters, although Bence seems the closest to the real thing. Perkins remains a bit of an enigma to modern audiences, who may know he wrote “Blue Suede Shoes” but not know that much more about his career.
Presley, of course, is iconic, and Cash has recently been the subject of his own musical, The Ballad of Johnny and June. Big shoes to fill and a tough ask. However, Million Dollar Quartet is not a biopic in any sense. When it tries to include material from the quartet’s lives, such as their shared experiences of losing a sibling, it feels awkward and unnecessary. Where it shines is in its setlist of more than 20 numbers, all toe-tapping gems. Each actor finds a sense of the person they portray.
There’s also a strong fictional element to proceedings. It is recorded that Cash didn’t really participate in the jam, although he was present for the photograph. Escott and Mutrux have also decided to include the character Dyanne (played by Jenay Naima), who serves as Elvis Presley’s girlfriend and gets two numbers of her own. But Naima isn’t on the poster or included in the publicity for the show, and although she is vaguely based on Marilyn Evans, there is no evidence Evans sang on the recording.
Accompanying musicians Geraint Downing (double bass) and Jacob Evans (drums) add significant power to the proceedings, as well as nominally playing Carl’s brother Jay Perkins and Fluke Holland, the real men on the session. This is raw, new, and hungry music, and they get it well.
The staging is an interesting choice, with an extremely low stage leaving any activity near the floor hard to see, and much dodging around heads in front despite the raking of the seats in this temporary venue. It might have been better to raise the set slightly to compensate for this. The sightlines are particularly noticeable when the audience stands for the inevitable four-song encore, one for each member of the quartet.
There’s no need to go to Million Dollar Quartet looking for a dramatic night out. What it does offer is an enjoyable exploration of what might have happened on a particular night at the birth of a musical revolution. As Lewis puts it, “Rock ‘n’ roll is temptation, fornication, and damnation, in that order.” These are God-fearing young men with a sense of the devil in them, but that’s a whole different show.
I’m giving this 3.5 stars.
Million Dollar Quartet continues at The Arts at Marble Arch until 6 December. It transferred from the Barn Theatre, Cirencester, in a production by Jonathan O’Boyle.
Photo credits: C Alex Tabrizi