Review: THE HARDER THEY COME, Theatre Royal Stratford East

One minute you’re in an East London street, the next you are immediately transported to early-1970s Kingston: the style, the sounds, the rhythms, the smell of ambition and frustration. The Harder They Come at Stratford East is a vivid, energetic production that honours the cult classic film while breathing new life into it.

Throughout, Matthew Xia’s stage adaptation cleaves closely to the original film’s plot. Ivan (Natey Jones) comes from the countryside to see his mother in Kingston and falls head over heels for both the city and the religious Elsa. His attempts to woo her are blocked by her preacher guardian who wants his ward for himself. When Ivan tries to make it as a singer, he is blocked by Hilton, the local music mogul who controls the radio stations, recording studio and the record stores. Desperate, he turns to selling drugs but his ambitions are thwarted by the well-connected kingpin. Ivan eventually triumphs over all three before a final gunfight with the cops. An epilogue salutes Ivan’s pyrrhic victory and how his musical legacy spread across the world.

Xia’s direction keeps us on our toes from the snappy opening numbers through to the bittersweet finale. He mostly avoids the kind of clichés lampooned in the highly underrated spoof Walk Hard and shows a real flair for balancing character development with a cheeky sense of fun. The dynamic dialogue is aided by punchy choreography from Shelley Maxwell; as well as some neat ensemble pieces, one scene sees churchgoers throw off their surplices and erotically gyrate in a manner that Madonna would surely applaud.

There’s a particular joy in watching how music carries the emotional core. Tucked away in an upper corner, a powerful live band rolls out hit after hit. Many are culled from the film's seminal soundtrack, an album credited with evangelising reggae around the world. An invigorating array of iconic numbers from reggae superstar (and the original Ivan) Jimmy Cliff - including the title song plus “You Can Get It If You Really Want” and “Many Rivers to Cross” - are layered in alongside other contemporaneous works like Desmond Dekker & the Aces’ “Israelites” and Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” (recorded later by Cliff for the film Cool Runnings). Held aloft by this heady soundscape, the show moves effortlessly between exultation, longing, defiance, heartbreak. The musical numbers are integral to everything we see: they lift the mood, deepen the impact of the plot points and give interior life to Ivan’s hopes and disillusionment.

Language also plays an important part in establishing not just geography but character psychology. The heady patois slung back and forth feels natural and necessary, the back-and-forth banter woven into how characters think, relate, argue, dream. It strengthens the sense of place, helps us understand how language carries identity, and doesn’t flatten or exoticise the speech patterns. Even for audience members unfamiliar with Jamaican patois, the inflections, rhythms, tone, atmosphere make clear what’s at stake emotionally.

Visually, the show is gorgeous. Jessica Cabassa’s period clothing with its vivid colour, strong textures and playful detail of Seventies Jamaican fashion helps root the play in its time without feeling museum-piece stiff. The immersive visuals don’t stop there: Simon Kenny’s fluid and intelligent set design shifts us fluently from street scenes to a church pulpit and a nightclub. More intimate scenes in Ivan’s mother’s kitchen or the room he shares with Elsa are organically wrought through a mix of clever use of space and Ciarán Cunningham’s intimate lighting.Transitions feel organic, and allow an emotional pacing in which public and private worlds collide.

Jones is spellbinding as the ambitious Ivan, a very different role to the villainous Aaron he recently played alongside Simon Russell Beale in the highly acclaimed RSC production of Titus Andronicus in Stratford-upon-Avon. His role was recast when that production opened last night at London’s Hampstead Theatre and, if Jones has any regrets about the move, it certainly isn’t evident in his ebullient performance. A charming Madeline Charlemagne stands her ground as Elsa while Josie Benson effortlessly pulls at the heartstrings as Ivan's mother Daisy.

If there’s any critique, it might be that the pace in this magnificent tribute to the heyday of reggae sometimes races through the quieter conflicts to make room for spectacle or musical pieces. But largely, this doesn’t detract; rather, it echoes the feeling that Ivan’s life itself is sprinting, being pulled in many directions, with little rest.

The Harder They Come continues until 25 October.