Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh
Adapted from the film, this vibrant show has plenty of joyful foot-stomping, with a star who gives us the raw fragility behind the fanfare

If you can’t be sentimental in a show about country music, when can you be? The most affecting moments in this big-hearted musical come when tough talking gives way to tenderness. Like the genre itself, Wild Rose is forthright, vibrant and emotionally raw.

Wittily adapted by Nicole Taylor from her 2018 film of the same name and staged with elan by John Tiffany, it is the story of ex-con Rose-Lynn Harlan as she tries to reconcile the need to care for her children with her ambitions to make it as a singer. Believing no country star ever came out of Glasgow, she sets her sights on Nashville. That is, after she has dealt with the cleaning job, ankle tag and night-time curfew.