Bronco Billy: The Musical review – Clint Eastwood inspires misfiring caper

Charing Cross theatre, London
Hunter Bird’s often madcap production, based on the 1980 western, has anodyne songs and lacks the film’s weathered perspective

Bronco Billy is one of Clint Eastwood’s ropier westerns, from a time when he was sending up his Man With No Name persona. Released in 1980, in between two comedies where his co-star was an orangutan called Clyde, the film follows a grizzled sharpshooter whose ramshackle wild west troupe provides shelter for a runaway heiress. It’s a screwy caper boosted by the chemistry between Eastwood and Sondra Locke (who were offscreen partners) and eccentric support from his stock company of actors.

This flimsier musical version, with a book by original screenwriter Dennis Hacklin, isn’t short on star quality: the magnetic Tarinn Callender is Billy, his megawatt smile matched by Emily Benjamin’s as heiress Antoinette, while Victoria Hamilton-Barritt wrings delightful detail from the expanded role of Antoinette’s stepmother. All three are brilliantly talented singers – if only they had songs that went beyond these perfectly pleasant, often anodyne numbers about living your dreams by Chip Rosenbloom, John Torres and Michele Brourman.

At Charing Cross theatre, London, until 7 April