In 1969, Judy Garland was desperate. She had already had four failed marriages, attempted suicide twice, and battled a number of health problems including acute hepatitis. End of the Rainbow captures the star’s life in the months before her death: the public and private, tears and tantrums, drugs and dazzling outfits.

‘I am always on my own up there’

Tracy Bennett is outstanding. Her Garland is a charismatic train wreck; both entertaining and addicted, surrounded and hopelessly alone. She is fragile, but none the smaller for it, and instead explores a dangerous instability, rocketing between despair and laughter. The show is peppered with humour even in its darkest moments.

Bennett’s vocal performance is stunning, featuring highlights such as ‘When You’re Smiling’, the ‘Trolley Song’ and ‘The Man That Got Away’. ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ is reworked into a devastating, desperate swansong. To nit-pick, I would have liked longer extracts of the songs, leaving more time to build each song’s emotion, but the strength of both Bennett’s vocals and her emotional performance eclipsed this minor weakness.

Mickey (Stephen Hagan) and Anthony (Hilton McRae) bring to the production an undercurrent of frustration and despair, capturing the reality of dealing with a star who, whilst undeniably entertaining, has an increasingly desperate day-to-day life. There is a sense of claustrophobia in the ‘private’ scenes, with Garland pressurised, largely by partner Mickey, to not let her audience down whatever state she is in.

In fact, Hagan’s Mickey is poisonous and parasitic, not only giving in to Garland’s demand for drugs, but practically forcing the things down her throat. It is pianist Anthony who is the real ‘protector,’ delivering both a sincere, sympathetic ear and flawless comic timing and trying, despite the hopelessness of his proposition, to offer Garland an ‘out’ from showbiz.

End of the Rainbow is the sort of show that draws you into the emotional lives of its characters and makes you feel with them. It comes in that special elite of plays that have the ability to make an audience completely forget they’re fictional. Definitely, definitely worth a visit.

End of the Rainbow is playing at the Trafalgar Studios until 21st May. Tickets and information on the website here.