Gerardine Sacdalan and Matt Cardle on & Juliet: 'Is it a feminist musical? Absolutely.'

Gerardine Sacdalan in & Juliet | Matt Crockett

The show is called & Juliet, but don’t worry about brushing up your Shakespeare. Yes, David West Read’s musical is inspired by Romeo And Juliet but not even the lead actors have given Shakespeare’s play much thought.

“I think I did Romeo And Juliet at secondary school, but I’m pretty sure I switched off,” says Gerardine Sacdalan, playing the lead role.

“I would have been in an English lesson where we were looking at it,” says an equally vague Matt Cardle, the X Factor winner, who takes on the role of Shakespeare. “You really have to forget anything Shakesperean – there’s one mention of Romeo And Juliet at the start and then you’re off.”

If you need to know anything, it is that Shakespeare’s play ends badly. & Juliet, by contrast, imagines what would happen in happier circumstances. Instead of Juliet killing herself after discovering the corpse of Romeo, she goes on to have a fulfilling life, no longer beholden to a man.

“What if Romeo was a side character?” says Sacdalan, who graduated from London’s Urdang Academy only a month ago. “What if he wasn’t the reason Juliet killed herself? I was thinking through all the musicals that I love and in every single one, the female dies. Always! This is such a nice change to that.”

Is it a feminist musical? “Absolutely. Juliet tackles so many important messages, but feminism leads. All of the women are strong and independent which is rare in theatre.”

It is also a jukebox musical – but one with a twist. Unlike shows put together from songs by well-known acts, & Juliet has a soundtrack by a writer you might not even have heard of. His name is Max Martin and he is behind 25 number one hits. Only Paul McCartney has topped the charts more often.

& Juliet | Matt Crockett

“If he walked past you in the street, you would have no scoobie,” says Sacdalan. “We met him on opening night and you would have no idea that he is an absolute genius. He was super down-to-earth. If I could write songs like that, I would not shut up about it.”

Martin’s lack of profile is in inverse proportion to those of his songwriting collaborators. They include Pink, Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift. Songs on the soundtrack of & Juliet include I Want It That Way by Backstreet Boys, …Baby One More Time by Britney Spears and I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry.

“In my early 20s doing covers in pub gigs, we used to do one or two of his songs,” says Cardle. “And one week on The X Factor, it was guilty pleasures week and I sang …Baby One More Time. Me and Savan Kotecha, who is a friend of Max, split the melody here and there. After the show, Max texted Savan with an angry face, saying, ‘He changed my melody!’”

Martin was joking of course, but does Cardle still call it a guilty pleasure? “It depends who you are and what type of music you like,” he says. “If you grew up on Rage Against The Machine and Slipknot like I did, then yes, it could be guilty pleasure. But if you’re a pop head, then absolutely not. They’re just stone-cold classics.”

Sacdalan says she loves singing Roar by Katy Perry – “the ultimate pop star fantasy” – and Since U Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson: “I’m pretty sure every teenage girl has had that song on her breakup playlist and channelling that is so much fun.”

Claiming her independence in this version, Juliet heads not to a nunnery but to Paris on what one critic called a “feminist road trip”. Sacdalan calls it a “self-love journey”: “You know when you hit your 20s and you want to go to Asia to discover yourself as a person? I feel that’s Juliet. She learns her lessons through many different people she meets. It’s truly about a young person figuring herself out.”

Because of this new context, Sacdalan says she has the freedom to interpret the music in her own way: “Jukebox musicals have a reputation for putting in a song randomly for the sake of it, whereas in & Juliet, it just fits incredibly well. I don’t have to channel any of the original artists: I approach it from Juliet’s perspective. I’ve forgotten how the actual songs go. The only version I can think of …Baby One More Time is the & Juliet version. And it could not be further from the video if it tried!”

For Cardle, & Juliet is the continuation of a parallel career in musical theatre that began with the rock’n’roll show Memphis in 2015. He has also appeared in Strictly Ballroom and Jesus Christ Superstar, although it has not put a stop to his job as a solo musician. His fifth studio album, The Great Escape, is finished and will be released on 10 January. He does, though, think of the two roles differently.

“To survive eight shows a week, you have to have the most perfect technique and elements of individuality in your voice will disappear,” he says. “You can’t misuse air in your natural voice in the theatre. I went from recording my album into & Juliet and the transition was difficult. But the strength training of theatre is amazing. I was on tour with Trevor Horn in 2017 and he said, “Oh wow, you can tell you’ve been doing a show! because my voice was just stronger.”

& Juliet, King's Theatre, Glasgow, 13–24 August; Edinburgh Playhouse, 12–16 November; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 4–8 February.