The Ballad of Johnny & June – ambitious musical goes behind the scenes of country music power couple (Grand Opera House until Saturday 8 August)

The only son of Country music legends June Carter and Johnny Cash narrates the story of his parent’s journey through the music business, into each other’s arms, and into their graves. Along the way we meet family members, divorced spouses, record producers and band members, all played by a six-strong ensemble.

The Ballad of Johnny & June is far more complex than the simple label of jukebox musical would suggest, with as many narrative-led songs as big numbers that the audience can’t help sing and clap along to.

The tale of showbiz success, marriage failures, and a coming together of the Carter and Cash families is told by son John (Ryan O’Donnell) from the side of the stage, with a neat sequence of first act flashbacks filling in older family details. O’Donnell is an accomplished guitar player and holds the show together. His regular breaking of the fourth wall increases the intimacy of the account he’s telling.

Christopher Ryan Grant has perfected Johnny Cash’s mannerisms, his gait, the shoe shuffle, as well as the way he holds and strums his guitar. His deep voice powers through the songs. Johnny’s string of affairs make a mockery of the lyrics to his first number one song I Walk The Line. But it’s his drug addiction that threatens his health.

Christina Bianco is a fire rocket on stage, demonstrating mighty breath control, and capturing the lust and love June had for Johnny along with the accompanying trials and tribulations. Acting beside Grant, Bianco flits between being cheeky, flirty, angry and distressed.

The show’s opening number quickly establishes that the actors are also musicians, with song after song showing off their skill at close harmonies. Given the ease with which the audience join in the songs – mostly when they are invited to – much of the storyline sticks to the facts, with the narrator even acknowledging when one scene has taken particular license. Elvis is name-checked, along with a fun mention of Patsy Cline. With so much packed into the dense script, for the cast it must be like stepping onto a roller-coaster, with very little time to breath, but they never flinch or hesitate, taking the non-stop action in their stride. 

The long first half feels like it will climax with Ring of Fire (after alluding to the song’s ambiguous and contested genesis), but keeps going, taking in a divorce or two, and a rather coercive marriage proposal, before finally breaking.

After the interval, a full rendition of A Boy Named Sue resets the energy levels, and a frenzied version of I’ve Been Everywhere gets the largest applause of the evening from the Grand Opera House audience. We witness the destructive behaviour on both sides of the marriage. And we watch as John challenges his mother about her own use of amphetamines. June saves Johnny, but can anyone save her?

Tragedies mount as the story concludes. It’s at this late point that director Des McAnuff and Robert Cary’s book feels like it almost veers off the road. Unless some of the dialogue went over my head, the explanations of the couple’s deaths are perhaps the least canonical aspects of the musical. While the transition from sadness to a song is logical, the execution feels clumsy and the production’s well-oiled gears are almost stripped in what unexpectedly turns out to be the best duet of the show, an emotionally charged rendition of Always On My Mind (though I’m not sure Johnny ever sang this with June in real life).

Performed in a heavy wooden set (designed by Robert Brill) with most of the stage lighting (Amanda Zieve) hidden in the rafters, the house band hide up high at the back, with trumpeter Morgan Rees enriching many of the arrangements. By the close, I’m still not sure why the set is a barn, and even less certain why a rocking chair has been lurking all this time on a shelf stage left.

The Ballad of Johnny & June continues its run at the Grand Opera House until Saturday 8 August. It’s a hugely ambitious musical that confidently paints a picture of two hugely successful country music stars.

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

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