Reviews round-up for Shucked at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

"This clever screwball musical is perfect escapism"

"The songs, steeped in Nashville values, have an authentic ring and the writing is full of sly nods and winks in this gloriously funny production"

"These are bleak times, but the good news is that you can escape it all by visiting three new or new-ish shows that all use gloriously funny meta humour... at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, you can wallow in a screwball musical putting Grand Ole Opry pieties through the shredder."

"Shucked, which opened on Broadway two years ago, delivers a hilarious opening shot in Drew McOnie’s inaugural season as artistic director. It delivers a diet of puns — clever, raunchy and sometimes knowingly cheap"

"Robert Horn’s book is a thing of beauty. The storyline may be slender but it’s crammed with in-jokes and sly nods and winks, all stitched neatly into place by the show’s Broadway director, Jack O’Brien."

"From the moment the pre-show announcement asks us to switch off our tractors, we know we are in safe hands."

"Laugh-out loud sunshine"

"The Open Air theatre season kicks off with this corn-obsessed musical full of chirpy gags and songs"

"Summer may not have fully arrived for the start of the Open Air theatre’s season, but this Tony award-winning musical comedy delivers a burst of nourishing, laugh-out-loud sunshine."

"Jack O’Brien’s irresistibly eager-to-please production"

"I’m surprised Shucked did so well on Broadway, where I thought they preferred their musicals high-minded or razzamatazzy; but relentlessly chirpy gags and songs, the deliberate mix of naivete and snark from the cast, and the juxtaposition of rural and urban life sit perfectly in this leafy venue."

"This knowingly ridiculous story is winningly sold, with a good deal of winking and smirking, by the alchemical double-act of Monique Ashe-Palmer and Steven Webb as Storytellers 1 and 2, who double up as mobsters and gem experts."

"Georgina Onuorah uses every withering put-down and shriveling side-eye she’s given in this role to steal the show, and gives powerful voice to the best number, the raunchy, bluesy Independently Owned"

"This could be the next Book of Mormon"

"Replete with corny one-liners, this barmy American musical is a zesty treat for the summer months – and may well head to the West End"

"... this off-beat, Tony-nominated American musical comedy, which is so replete with corny one-liners and crosstalk it could leave you in sore need of a lie-down as you clutch your sides, groaning. But if your taste that way inclines, you’re in for a treat."

"What no words on the page can do full justice to, though, is the way it all comes together beautifully, and zestily, on the stage, testament to an exhaustive development process."

"Sophie McShera is doltish and dreamy but also a free-spirit worth rooting for as Maizy, and like her, Ben Joyce’s son of the soil Beau has a gorgeous number that lets rip with yearning. There’s terrific support from a lung-busting Georgina Onuorah"

"Keith Ramsay as a scene-stealing wag called Peanut risks triggering allergies with his constant wisecracks (“I was just playing Frisbee with my goat – he’s a lot heavier than I thought”) but he neatly embodies the (mainly) innocuous pleasure of a barmy show which, after a hopefully balmy summer, may yet head, like some latter-day, family-friendly Book of Mormon, to the West End."

"It’s not elegant but if you’re in the right frame of mind, or maybe mindlessness, it’s pretty funny."

"... only a curmudgeon wouldn’t warm to the zany exuberance of Horn’s book which frequently resembles of a list of jokes rather than a script."

"Alex Newell stole the show on Broadway as local distiller and self-made woman Lulu, who’s also Maizy’s cousin. It happens all over again in London with Georgina Onuorah’s equally sizzling performance, belting stratospherically and dispensing wisecracks"

"Clark and McAnally’s melodious, intermittently punchy, score plays second fiddle to the belly laughs of Horn’s script, but successfully infuses the country genre with theatricality."

"Monique Ashe-Palmer and Steven Webb are goofily funny and plain adorable as a pair of camp narrators with more connection to the story than one initially suspects. The ensemble is terrific and there’s gleefully knowing work from Matthew Seadon-Young"

"It’s the maize-based, country-tinged cutie pie of a musical you never knew you needed. Like that ubiquitous yellow vegetable, it’s only moderately nourishing but it’s sweet and surprisingly delicious."

"Terrific songs add zest to undercooked corn country musical"

"Thin tale of neighbourly spirit is loaded with groansome gags but the hoedowns and show tunes are full of flavour"

"Aw, shucks. There’s plenty to love about this US import, a country musical with a zany corn obsession and a message about breaking down barriers that suits this open air theatre. But just how much corn-fed wordplay can you stomach?"

"The actors essentially double as standups, delivering one-liners that are often very funny and occasionally enhance character and story but are mostly fired at random"

"... it’s Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally’s songs that often blow you away: hoedowns, lonesome ballads, stagecoach rhythms, loud and proud show tunes, with a five-piece band heavy on the guitars and giving a percussive boost to the humour."

"... when even the thinly drawn characters express alarm at the words they’re saying, it’s hard to invest in the relationships."

"Shucked really wants you to laugh and care but to do that would require separating the wheat from the chaff."

"Broadway hit Shucked is a corn-ucopia of agriculture puns, Southern stereotypes and slick songs"

"Grammy-winning writing duo Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally elevate a corny production"

"It’s a folksy, pun-filled, and very, very American musical comedy about Southern life that, much like a steaming bowl of grits, is probably delightful if it’s the kind of thing you were raised on."

"Most musicals have a script. The creators of Shucked, meanwhile, seem to have handed its cast a teetering pile of those novelty wooden signs with quotes on like “family is telling somebody to go to hell... then wishing they get there safely”"

"These deft one-liners are pelted at the audience at an exhausting speed"

"What really do translate are the songs, which are unabashedly gorgeous... Georgina Onuorah is a standout as Lulu, her beautifully voiced rendition of “Independently Owned” airing any number of Nineties pop feminist tropes and making them feel fresh."

"This gag-heavy US musical about an isolated corn farming community is very funny, but there’s not a lot there beyond the laughs"

"Broadway hit Shucked is a musical about corn, and very funny it is too."

"And it’s not just jokes about corn: book writer Robert Horn is an absolute ninja with a one-liner, and Shucked is near enough wall-to-wall with the things."

"Shucked is as good as its one-liners, which is to say that it’s very good while the one-liners are being delivered, but there’s not a lot there beyond them."

"The characters are all fairly rote – despite his blank slate nature Webb’s childishly overexcited Storyteller 2 is the most original creation, although Georgina Onuorah is magnificent as Maizy’s monumentally sassy cousin Lulu."

"... it comes to London as the opening show in Drew McOnie’s first season at the Open Air Theatre with the sense it’s less an eccentric piece of outsider art, but rather a big shiny Broadway hit. It maybe doesn’t have the underdog charm it has in the US, and its flaws are more exposed."

"In general I think it could be spikier, darker and more satirical, but presumably Horn simply isn’t into that. Still: Shucked is very, very funny."

"Loveably loopy"

"Shamelessly silly, cartoonish musical about corn keeps us laughing along"

"It’s a show that revels in its corniness. This loveably loopy musical, winner of multiple Tony awards after opening on Broadway in 2023, sees every objection coming and shoots them down with cheeky alacrity by relentlessly sending itself up."

"Its irreverent humour also takes a leaf out of The Book of Mormon"

"Silly, disposable, yet undeniably entertaining, it has a quirky charm. And Jack O’Brien’s production is performed with enough vim to keep the corn popping, even when all narrative sense has gone cheerfully AWOL."

"... for all its good nature, the show drifts and sags in the second half, its moral platitudes a touch too sickly-sweet to swallow. But there’s so much rapid-fire, daft joy that you laugh along, even as you groan."

"The performances are game and energetic, with Monique Ashe-Palmer and Steven Webb mugging frantically as a pair of manic narrators. Georgina Onuorah is huge-voiced and majestic as Lulu"

"Make no mistake, it’s super stoopid. But at its best, it’s also sorta super – an uncomplicated good time."