Ordinary Days – Old Joint Stock, Birmingham

Music and Lyrics: Adam Gwon

Director: Karl Steele

Four young New Yorkers find themselves in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. For each, the visit is to prove to be the catalyst they need to reach their own epiphany.

Jason and Claire have been together for around a year and are moving their relationship to the next level as Jason moves in. But there is somehow some distance between them. Can they overcome that? Jason hopes that a visit to the Met will help recapture the heady early days of their relationship.

Deb and Warren are initially strangers until Warren finds Deb’s lost research notes on Virginia Woolf, and they meet to have him return them. Both seem to be treading water, looking for a new purpose, though neither would necessarily admit that.

It’s an ordinary day, one of many, that will have an extraordinary impact on each of their lives.

Director Karl Steele has taken full advantage of the intimate nature of the Old Joint Stock theatre, which helps overcome one of the show’s structural difficulties: although the characters naturally form into pairs and do perform as such, it is mostly four stories of four journeys. Key songs are solos that reflect the character’s feelings at that point, and these are brought to brighter life by involving the audience in their performance.

The young cast have fine voices, with that of Aidan Cutler (Warren), who occasionally gets to use his belt. His physicality is perfect for the role of Warren, oozing the need to be accepted and liked for himself. Dora Gee’s Deb is sassy and kooky, a livewire bundle of crackling g energy. Her physicality and very mobile face show us clearly how Deb, initially ‘lacking in zen’, finds a way forward.

Claire and Jason are painted more subtly with a more slow-burning arc. Nevertheless, Melisa Camba as Claire has arguably the best song, I’ll Be Here, an emotional piece that leaves many in the audience – including this reviewer – in bits. As Jason, James Edge’s talent for understated humour is to the fore, though one can’t help feeling that the script could make more of Jason’s character and his journey.

Set and lighting design are simple, with blocks moved slickly – almost imperceptibly – to form new locations: their arrangement for the dénouement of Deb and Warren’s thread really adds to the jeopardy their characters are feeling. The simple piano accompaniment from musical director Nick Allen unobtrusively supports the action throughout.

Ordinary Days as a musical isn’t without its faults. Nevertheless, the individual stories fill the Old Joint Stock, and one can’t help but be moved as the characters grow and ready themselves to move on.

Runs until 20 April 2025