The Secret Life Of Bees. Almeida Theatre.

There is not a duff song in the entire, magnificently sung, immaculately staged, two-and-a half hours of bliss that comprise the Almeida’s new musical The Secret Life of Bees. Duncan Sheik’s music and Susan Birkenhead’s lyrics, thunderously served by a uniformly talented cast that scarcely miss a note, more than make up for syrupy sweetness and absence of sting in the narrative.

1964, South Carolina. President Johnson’s newly enacted Civil Right Acts prohibits discrimination and segregation. That the theory at least; in the sweltering deep South the reality is very different. It is fourteen-year old Lily’s (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) birthday. She grieves her mother who died a decade earlier in hazy circumstances, a pain she “can’t fix with a brassiere and curls”. Brutalised by her peach-farmer father T-Ray (Mark Meadows), who rails bitterly against “the daughter he regrets he ever had”, Lily’s one respite lies in a burgeoning friendship with black housemaid Rosaleen (Abiona Omonua).

An encounter with two racist thugs at a voting booth leaves Rosaleen humiliated, bruised and at risk of arrest. The girls make urgent plans to leave, but where? An old postcard from the white girl’s mother, imprinted with an image of a black Madonna, draws the pair to a bee-farm run by the mystical matriarch August (Rachel John) and her sisters, frosty June (Ava Brennan) and melancholy May (Danielle Fiamanya).

The farm could use a little help with the bees. In exchange for food and board the girls find themselves drawn into the family orbit. But what exactly underpins the cult-like relationship the sisters have with the wooden effigy of the Madonna in the back room? And how come the sisters seem to know so much about Lily’s much missed mother? Add into the mix a budding but still taboo romance between Lily and African American farmhand Zachary (Noah Thomas).

Based on the 2001 best-selling novel by Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, is partly a coming of age story, specifically Lily’s reconciliation with the grinding guilt she feels over her mother’s demise. It is also partly a quest for a place both girls can call home and find some kind of freedom. It is a tough ask for any writer to distil a 336-page blockbusting novel into a manageable piece of musical theatre. Even someone of the calibre of Pulitzer-prize winning Lynn Nottage struggles to pull it off. The first half drags, and the narrative only really takes off when the motherly figure of August appears on the scene. Some of the political bite of the novel has been sacrificed, although thankfully the emotional strength of black women remains the tale’s driving force. A semi-comical storyline involving brittle teacher June and her on-off relationship with frustrated beau Neil (Tarinn Callender) meanders a while before fizzling out, and we never really get to the root of what underpins May’s enduring melancholia. There is a start-stop clunkiness to parts of the storytelling and a looming threat of melodramatic overkill to unfolding events, particularly in the sisters’ treacly and much repeated evocation that “every living creature responds to love”. This includes bees. All that would matter, if the singing, music, and lyrics were not so utterly close to perfection.

The ensemble is brilliant in the show’s opening ode to the oppressive heat of the southern summer, River Of Melting Sun. It is close to physically impossible not to be moved by the stunning vocal range Rachel John brings to her portrayal of August, particularly in the show’s title song The Secret Life Of Bees and in the ensemble hymn about casting off the shackles of slavery, Our Lady Of Chains. Worthington-Cox verges on a little too cutesy as Lily, but boy can she sing, most obviously in the measured and heart-felt duet What Do You Love. Omonua simply stuns in the production’s first showstopper, Sign My Name and in her fiery denunciation of Lily’s sense of white entitlement, All About You. The rock-n-roll themed Fifty-Five Fairlane feels a little out of sync with the bluesy, gospel-toned feel of the rest of the score and adds little to the plot, but Noah Thomas delivers it with verve.

Soutra Gilmour’s revolving set, a barebones wooden frame of a southern country home, is beautifully lit in honeycomb shades by Neil Austin. Queen Jean’s costumes, soft yellows, amber, chestnut, and coffee browns are pitch perfect.  It there is justice in the world the Almeida should have a hit on its hands here. This is an unmissable serving of fresh and joyful theatre.

Book: Lynn Nottage (based on the novel by Sue Monk Kidd)

Music: Duncan Sheik

Lyrics: Susan Birkenhead

Director: Whitney White