The 1992 film
The Bodyguard, starring Kevin Costner and marking the acting debut of singing megastar Whitney Houston, was a standard romantic thriller, greatly enhanced by Houston's presence and a cascade of big musical numbers. Surprisingly, it took twenty years to make the transition to the stage. Premiering in London in December 2012, just ten months after Houston's death, the show has since become a massive global success. Now it arrives at Milton Keynes Theatre again as part of its fourth UK tour in just thirteen years.
The Bodyguard sees former Secret Service agent turned bodyguard, Frank Farmer, hired to protect an Academy Award-nominated actress and music superstar, Rachel Marron, from a stalker. Between Farmer's duties and Marron's career, something inevitably builds between the two amid music and dancing aplenty.
Taking the leads on this tour are Sidonie Smith as Rachel and Adam Garcia as Frank. Smith has appeared in
The Bodyguard before, as a walk-in in a previous production, and her familiarity with the role is evident from her performance. She strays away from creating Houston's take on Rachel and makes the role very much her own. Her vocal performances are mostly excellent, but certain songs tend to stretch her range, making you even more appreciative of Houston's talent. She creates a superb pairing with Garcia as Frank, forming an initially prickly relationship that, as expected, evolves into something of another kind.
Garcia, as Frank, is excellent at all times, but an extremely unusual casting in many ways. The role of Frank is staid and inanimate, exhibiting little interest in the music that surrounds Rachel's world, so, for a song and dance man, Garcia in the role seems a colossal waste of his talent. All that said, he gives an excellent performance as the sharp-suited (with select knitwear) and authoritative Frank, who, slowly but surely, has his emotions chiselled out. He has a few great moments of humour as well, not least with the gloriously awkward karaoke scene.
Elsewhere in the cast, the best support comes from Sasha Monique as the unknown sister of Rachel, who also possesses considerable talent, but resorts to showcasing it only in the background. Monique is truly excellent, vocally stunning, and at times the stronger of the two sisters, particularly during their duet of
Run to You.
Many of the rest of the cast are supporting characters, including a slightly too comically annoying character in Sy Spector, Rachel's music producer, played by Matt Milburn. There is a tremendously cool performance from the young Rio Chigwedere as Rachel's son Fletcher. James-Lee Harris is suitably menacing as The Stalker, and given a few moments to show his menace, one in particular that elicits shock from the audience in classic slasher movie territory.
Direction from Thea Sharrock is exceptionally sharp, keeping this production moving at a quick pace with effective scene changes, an improvement over the previous production. Tim Hatley's set also collaborates well with this, making everything fluid with little interruption to momentum. Some limited, but good video design from Duncan Mclean fills any other necessary gaps.
There is plenty of movement for the talented ensemble to dig their teeth into, thanks to Karen Bruce's energetic choreography, creating some epic concert-level spectacles on the theatre stage, including an epic opening number.
Sadly, during this performance, an undeniable lighting issue with the stage left spotlight was apparent, which for most of the evening had a mind of its own, distracting especially during some of the solo and duet numbers and sometimes leaving the performers in the dark.
The Bodyguard is a long way from refined theatre; the screenplay, written by Lawrence Kasdan with a book by Alexander Dinelaris, is pure popcorn theatre antics, lightweight thriller action. However, as a musical package, it becomes more. It is serving theatres well as it packs them everywhere it goes, and for that, The Bodyguard should be applauded as a production.
An intriguing thriller wrapped around a catalogue of hugely impressive music.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Performance reviewed: Tuesday 21st October 2025 at the Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes.
Photographs: Paul Coltas
