In July 1955, Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be hanged in Britain. Despite serious concerns about her mental state and the abuse she had endured, the nightclub hostess was convicted of murdering her lover, David Blakely. The government refused to stay her execution. Her death is widely regarded as a watershed moment in shifting public opinion against capital punishment. Ruth The Musical frames her story in retrospect, as Ellis revisits her life in conversation with the man who will ultimately act as her executioner. Bibi Simpson brings a raw, brittle intensity to the imprisoned Ruth, while Hannah Taylor’s portrayal of her younger self captures both vulnerability and reckless longing. Connor Payne is chillingly effective as David, exuding the careless cruelty of a cad accustomed to having his own way. John Faal impresses both dramatically and vocally as Ruth’s hapless admirer, Desmond. The production gestures towards weighty themes such as class, gender, and the morality of capital punishment, yet it seldom rises above the conventions of a stylised true-crime drama. Ruth’s damaged upbringing and her retreat into fantasy, culminating in her fixation on David, are sketched with sympathy. However, the emotional stakes fail to ignite. What should feel like overwhelming, destructive passion instead registers as something smaller and sadder, more contingent than tragic. The score is similarly inconsistent. Some numbers convey a genuine sense of the period, but few linger in the memory, with the ballad Day After Day as a notable exception. The evening’s musical high point arrives in Act II, when the women of the club confront the legal establishment with Hypocrites, a sharply delivered, energised ensemble that injects the show with brief but welcome bite. The use of video and film clips further enhances immediacy and provides a sense of context. At its heart, Ruth The Musical carries a powerful narrative, speaking to injustice, exploitation, and the failures of a society quick to condemn. Yet in this production, the subject matter never achieves the full height of tragedy. The result is an engaging and occasionally striking work that remains, ultimately, the tale of an abused woman who committed a notorious crime. Undeniably sad and arguably a miscarriage of justice, Ruth The Musical does not quite attain the universal or archetypal resonance it strives for.
Rated: ★★★
Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Charlie Flint
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