"Bonnie & Clyde" by The Mellow Dramatics.

The Brewhouse Arts Centre, Burton on Trent.

At the height of the Great Depression, West Texas' Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow went from two small-town zeroes to America's most feared heroes, and Texas law enforcement's worst nightmares.

When Bonnie and Clyde meet, their mutual cravings for excitement and fame immediately set them on a mission to chase their dreams.

Their bold and reckless behaviour turns the young lovers' thrilling adventure into a downward spiral, putting themselves and their loved ones, Buck Barrow - Clyde's brother - and Blanche, Buck's wife, in trouble with the law. Forced to stay on the run, the lovers resort to robbery and murder to survive. As the infamous duo's fame grows bigger, their inevitable end draws nearer.

The musical starts with young Bonnie & Clyde, showing where their roots started, and takes us all the way through to almost the end, and I say that because we all know the inevitable outcome but, with a few areas in this historical saga, we know what happens, we just don't need to see what happens.

This is the first time that I've attended anything by The Mellow Dramatics, and been to The Brewhouse Arts Centre, which is a lovely building complete with large café area with a performance space as well as the fully functional theatre performance area. Even though this was my first show by The Mellows, I found I actually was aware of a couple of the actors via other theatre groups. That said, all the other actors were completely new to me, so I had no previous experience to make any comparisons with.

Young Clyde is played by Fin Watson, who quite surprised me with the strength of his voice and characterisation. This straight away made me think that if an actor this young has such a good voice, what must the rest of the cast be like?

Young Bonnie is played by Emily Padmore-Flint. This musical is set in the 1930's and Emily's voice just really seems to fit so well into the sound of many vocalists from that era. It's these two young versions of the titular characters that we discover what their future dreams are, and while Bonnie's dreams are for fame within acting, singing and poetry, Clyde's future dreams don't stray far from his roots shown at this part of the musical.

Both young actors show confidence in both their acting abilities as well as their vocalisation skills.

Clyde Barrow is played by Bradley Hambleton. Brad brings the playful cockiness out of Clyde's character and is a very strong leading man. His vocals are excellent and there are a couple of songs that require the singer to maintain long notes, one being "The World Will Remember Me", which Brad sustains so well, and so early on in the production.

Another highlight, among many with Brad's performance, is when he is locked up in jail and sings "Raise A Little Hell", this time with a dark determination that sends shivers down your spine, aided by an evil look that you could imagine Clyde's victims being on the receiving end of. Brad really got under the skin of the character and showed the two sides of the legendary outlaw; the loving and playful partner to Bonnie, as well as the fear inducing criminal.

Bonnie Parker is played by Chloe Lang, and a lovely choice of romantic foil for Clyde. She really shows how Bonnie's head was turned by the confident and cheeky jailbird who won her heart and set her on the path to infamy and fortune. Throughout her joint reign of terror though she kept up her poetry. Bonnie has a lovely voice and her harmonies are gorgeous, whether it's in her duets with Brad or Amy, or in the whimsical "How 'Bout A Dance", Chloe has a voice that will be remembered. Chloe is another who throws everything into her character acting, making you believe in the role she plays.

Kieran Barrett plays Buck Barrow, and what stuck me is the quality of the actors that The Mellows have because here is another very strong character actor. Everyone nailed the accent and everyone delivered their specific character brilliantly; not one weak link anywhere. Kieran shows how torn Buck was between his loyalty to his brother and his love for his wife, Blanche, and doing what she told him to do, exhibited by her forcing his hand by getting him to return to jail after Clyde and Buck's initial jailbreak. Another strong voice and another powerful voice.

One part did make me smile though, and this was unintentional. Most of the musical Buck wears brown trousers, until his change into a smart pinstripe gangster suit, matching Clyde's sharp attire. I'm not sure if the fly zip was either broken just before the costume change, or was just not noticed by anyone - well it's a busy musical - but you know the old adage of if you get an unexpected laugh, check your flies? No laughs, and I bet no one else noticed anyway.

Amy Glover plays Blanche Barrow. Now, I've seen Amy before so I knew what a magnificent voice Amy has and what a cracking actor she also is, and again, Amy didn't disappoint. I loved the fun vocal style of "You're Going Back To Jail" and her duet with Chloe on "You Love Who You Love".

Ted, who is slightly obsessive over Bonnie, which gives him an unhealthy reason to eradicate Clyde, is played by Andrew Warner. Ted Hinton is part of the Sheriff's posse out to stop the murdering and robbing spree but that dangerous obsession overtakes Ted's view of the situation and gives the character an edge. Andrew brings that edge out with the acting and you sense the urgency in trying to get Clyde out of the picture and rescue Bonnie. Andrew has a really strong voice but can bring his vocals down to almost a whisper with ease, as shown in Ted's spotlight song "You Can Do Better Than Him".

Chris Moss plays The Sheriff who is in charge of the operation to track down the outlaws and take them off the streets by whatever method in a smaller but quite ruthless character role.

The Preacher is played by Joe Bromfield, and what I initially noticed with Joe is his vocals are so different to anyone else's in this musical. He has a sound of his own, and I liked that because he stood out. You may notice that men of the cloth have a certain way of singing and that is what Joe has captured for this role. I love the gospel sound of his voice and "God's Arms Are Always Open" and "Made In America" are real gems. Joe also gets to wear the snazziest of bow ties as the Preacher.

Alison Broadley plays Bonnie's mum, Emma Parker. She's very protective of her daughter, especially when Bonnie turns up at the house with Clyde in tow, she drops into the conversation that Bonnie's husband would be home soon, just to make sure that Clyde got the lay of the land around the Parker residence, which puts Clyde on the back foot.

Playing the Barrow boys parents are Maria Smith as Cumie Barrow and Melvyn Edwards as Henry Barrow.

The ensemble consist of Natalie Veasey, Daisy Parker, Elise Brassington, Jonathan Moore, Chris Towland, Sophia Lewington, Theo O'Brien and Angela Kirk.

The soundtrack to this musical has a bit of something for everyone with several earworms; try getting "Raise A Little Hell" out of your head!. There is blues, rock, country, bluegrass and a sprinkling of gorgeous ballads.

Musical Directors are Rachael Histed and Tim Robinson who must be very proud of this cast and their performance. I didn't spot one weak singer in this cast and, as I said earlier, the harmonies are spot on, especially "Picture Show" at the start which features all four actors who play Bonnie and Clyde. The nine piece band sounded fantastic and really created the feel of the 1930s, similar to how "Bugsy Malone" did.

Directed by Helen Thrupp, she got the feel of this era exactly right. The casting could not have been better, the pairing of the actors, the pace, the comedy and getting everything from her cast and leaving it out there on the stage is obviously something that Helen is very adept at. Helen is also responsible for the multi faceted set design which easily changed from the Parker house to a jail setting, a bank hold up scene to a police incident room and more. It also created entrance and exit points for Bonnie's car and the bedroom scenes.

I must mention the props, sourced by Joe Cowie. Everything that you could think of was there and all era appropriate. I loved the look of the old radio and the guns looked very realistic, as did the prison bars and the post office counter which looked as if it had been transported from one of those old westerns that you used to watch on Sunday afternoons as a kid.

There's video footage to show of the outlaws and to keep a timeline and setting so that we knew where we were at any given part of the show, indicating Bonnie and Clyde's hideouts and which state they were in. The technical side of this was by John Toplis.

The Sound and Lighting Design is by Matt Bancroft and Tom Berriman; both creating a feel and sound for the era. Only a couple of missed sound cues but were so minor that I don't think anyone noticed because the vocals were so strong.

Costumes are by Jane Bagshaw, Janet Powis and Natasha Ingham and were brilliant. They made you feel as if you were watching one of those old gangster movies from days gone by, especially the pin striped suits for the Barrow boys, and the clothing for the ladies were just as impressive. this show is a feast for the eyes as well as the ears.

And making sure that everything ran smoothly away from the audience's eyes was the Stage Manager, Dave Attwood and his stage crew. Swift scene changes and all kept very pacy throughout.

Not sure if this was intended but before the curtains were drew back, the light on the curtains was in the shape of a heart. It may have been a subliminal message to send out to say that this is a love story behind the killings and robbery, or maybe that you were going to love the show. Maybe it was just the way that the light fell on the curtains, either way, I loved this love story.

"Bonnie & Clyde" will be raising hell at The Brewhouse Arts Centre in Burton until Saturday 20 January.