Live every day as if it were your last - that's the message to take away from Bruce Joel Rubin's Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1990 film, on which this Bill Kenwright Productions stage musical is based. The original film starred Man of the Moment Patrick Swayze and Soon-To-Be Woman of the Moment Demi Moore and became the highest-grossing film that year, scooping five Oscar nominations (winning two of them) and four Golden Globe nominations. It was a phenomenon.
Twenty-one years later it was rejuvenated for a stage musical version, with new songs added by Eurythmics maestro Dave Stewart and veteran songwriter Glen Ballard (he's good - he co-wrote Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror). This Kenwright production is enhanced even further, with an improved story and different songs.
Rubin's original story is an undisputed classic, it's one everybody remembers and loves. At the start of the show, Molly and Sam are head over heels in love, so we know straight away that something bad is going to happen, and it does. Sam is shot and killed by a street robber, leaving heartbroken Molly alone and vulnerable. But for all the proclamations of love and devotion in the early scenes, it's only when Sam's shot dead that the show comes truly alive as his ghost hangs around in order to protect Molly from ongoing dangers.
