'Marie & Rosetta' review — Beverley Knight and Ntombizodwa Ndlovu deliver powerhouse performances

Read our review of Marie & Rosetta, now in performances at @sohoplace to 11 April.

Summary

• Beverley Knight and Ntombizodwa Ndlovu star in George Brant's 2016 play
• The play with music focuses on the creative partnership of Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight
• Performances continue @sohoplace through 11 April

If you've never heard of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, then you've largely proved the central thesis of George Brant's 2016 play Marie & Rosetta, which aims to highlight the extent to which the late American gospel singer was the unsung godmother of rock 'n' roll.

As well as an act of cultural reclamation it's also a love story, showing how Tharpe encouraged the talents of the younger Marie Knight during the 1940s, with whom she would form a brief but successful partnership. The play explores questions of faith, race, feminism and of course music, as what starts out as a star-fan relationship soon grows into something deeper. It all takes place in a shag-pile carpeted funeral parlour-cum-dressing room, highlighting the lowly venues the women were forced to play in the segregated south, and goes from their first meeting right through to a quietly heartbreaking end.

Monique Touko's production, which started life at the Rose Theatre, Kingston last year before transferring to Chichester, adapts well to this still fledgling in-the-round West End space. And it features, in Beverley Knight and Ntombizodwa Ndlovu, two powerhouse vocal performances that amply convey the talents of the two women they portray. From the moment Knight starts singing Tharpe's 1939 hit "This Train" (which, I would argue, could come sooner), to Ndlovu's stunning a capella rendition of "Peace in the Valley", it's a musical treat of the absolute highest order.

Both Rosetta and Marie were known as much for their instrumental as vocal abilities – as a guitarist and pianist respectfully – and the production wisely avoids the horror of mimed playing by alluding to it through the presence of a piano stool and guitar case. The actual musicians, including accomplished pianist Mia Odeleye and jazz guitarist Shirley Tetteh (who is also musical director) sit just off stage, with Tetteh at one point joining the performers on stage with thrilling effect. There's also some rousing tamborine action in the stirring Act One closer "Didn't It Rain".

Brant's script has an unfortunate tendency to feel like filler, the production only really sparking to life during the musical numbers and deftly choreographed moments of physical intimacy (the movement director is Kloé Dean), notably when Rosetta shows the buttoned-up Marie how to swing her hips — "my metronome", as she calls them. But it's a poignant story nevertheless, the tension between the free-spirited master and her god-fearing apprentice richly drawn, and their romantic chemistry never too far from the surface, culminating in a deeply moving finale.

Perhaps the greatest joy lies in the way the performances echo the characters; Knight, the feted soul singer turned West End leading lady, is one of UK theatre's most exciting talents, and here shines every bit as brightly as the Elvis-influencing Rosetta, while recent graduate Ndlovu is an undoubted star in the making. The combination is dynamite, and makes for an evening fit to honour the memory of two trailblazing women.

Marie & Rosetta is at @sohoplace to 11 April. Book Marie & Rosetta tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Marie & Rosetta (Photos by Johan Persson)