It is now nearly 35 years since the film Ghost became the blockbuster must-see of 1990 and a musical version hit the stage in 2011.
In those years the storyline has lost none of its supernatural romance and judging by the audience reaction at the opening night at the Regent Theatre it will attract bumper crowds for years to come.
Closely following the original storyline, the musical version sees Molly (Rebekah Lowings) – an aspiring ceramic artist – and her financier boyfriend Sam (Josh St Clair) moving into an apartment with the help of Sam’s work colleague friend Carl (James Mateo-Salt).
Sadly, the happiness is soon shattered when Sam is killed in a botched hold-up by Willie Lopez (Jules Brown) and the victim of the assault is left in the limbo land between life and the afterlife. Sam is helped to adjust to his situation by the Hospital Ghost (Les Dennis) and the Subway Ghost (Garry Lee) and quickly discovers that Carl is not all that he is cracked up to be and that Molly is in mortal danger.
Unable to directly communicate with his girlfriend and condemned to wander the world until Molly is safe, Sam enlists the unlikely help of Oda Mae Brown (Jacqui Dubois). Brown has been conning the gullible people of New York for some time as a quack psychic but Sam is able to show her – much to Brown’s surprise – that she does indeed have the gift.
The pair then face a race against time to thwart the conspiracy to defraud the finance company and to ensure that Molly is safe from harm. This race is both tense and highly comical.
Despite being a supernatural thriller, Ghost is also about the intense love between Molly and Sam with the latter being unable to say those three words I Love You until he has passed into the afterlife Without a strong stage connection between the two actors the play would be hollow.
Fortunately, Lowings and St. Clair are brilliant together and the audience truly believes in them as an item. St. Clair gives a performance as talented as that of Patrick Swayze with the addition of a fine singing voice.
Lowings is his perfect partner and really makes the audience empathise with her role of a grieving lover. And what a voice. Her solos With You and Nothing Stops Another Day are delivered in heart-wrenching perfection.
Dubois is perfectly cast in the Whoopi Goldberg role and steals the scenes when she is on stage and there is excellent support from the remainder of the cast with Mateo-Salt as an archetypal baddie and Dennis doing what he does best as the very likeable lad.
Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame provides a score that drives the production on and of course the iconic Unchained Melody makes several appearances particularly in the finale where its delivery leaves barely a dry eye in the house as Sam and Molly are able to have one last embrace before Sam is allowed to rest in peace.
Congratulations also go to Alistair David for his slick choreography with a rousing final scene in Act 1; to Lighting Designer Nick Richings who produced fabulous effects to guide Sam to Heaven, and to Musical Director Jordan Alexander.
The tag line of the production is Believe. Whether the musical gives more belief in an afterlife is open to conjecture but the audience can leave the auditorium with the knowledge and belief that this is a production that is very high on the entertainment scale and will leave the onlooker emotionally drained.
Many of the audience when leaving were talking about how often tears had been brought to their eyes. All I can say is Ditto.
Ghost The Musical continues until 16th November and has a running time of approximately 2 hours 45 minutes including interval. For ticket information contact atgtickets.com/stoke
