First, I’ll give you what you came for.
42 Balloons is crazy good. And by that, I mean it is both crazy and really, really good.
Thanks to wonderfulness of the show and the fact that the conceit of the story is present in the title–in the musical 42 Balloons, a dreamer named Larry flies in an unlikely airship consisting of a lawnchair and, you guessed it, 42 balloons–I can choose from a litany of AI-generated puns including, but not limited to…
42 Balloons Soars!
42 Balloons is a Lofty New Musical with Its Head in the Clouds!
42 Balloons Lifts Off with Heart, Humor, and Helium!
42 Balloons is Uplifting in Every Sense of the Word!
And… 42 Balloons Flies From the Stage Into our Hearts! (That one’s mine!)
So there you go! Pick your pun. They’re all true!
Now on to the review.
The story? Well, from the show’s opening, Prologue…
“In 1982, a man called Larry put himself in a lawn chair. Got some 42 balloons and went to 16,000 feet up into the air. With a sandwich and a radio, he went up on the 2nd of July. Yeah, in 1982, a man called Larry put himself up in the sky!”
“And this actually happened. You can look it up after the show. And you can tell your friends about it, and they can say, “That’s pretty crazy. Why did you go see a musical about balloons?”
You can’t make this stuff up, but if you’re the British writer Jack Godfrey, you can make it into a wonderful wild ride of a musical.
The show’s about crazy dreamers and the people who love them.
“What makes a man try to fly in a lawn chair? What makes a woman buy 42 weather balloons?”
Larry’s crazy dreamer plan? Tie lots of balloons to a lawn chair and fly up into the July sky. Then shoot balloons with a BB gun and descend back to the ground.
Jack Godfrey’s crazy dreamer plan? Take Larry’s lifelong crazy dreamer plan and write an 80s-infused, high-energy, overly sincere but still somehow wonderfully self-aware, smart, poignant, super fun, but also really sad story set to song.
So both dreams are crazy, but miraculously–or in Godfrey’s case, thanks to his own great writing, an extraordinary cast, and an exceptional production team–both crazy dreams came true.
Now, in its North American premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Godfrey’s musical takes Larry’s improbable flight and turns it into something strangely profound, funny but not silly, filled with heart and love, and quite possibly bound for Broadway fame.
Fresh off a buzz-worthy UK run at The Lowry–where The Times gave it five stars and called it “exceptionally touching”–42 Balloons is the product of a powerhouse producing team—Kevin McCollum (Rent, Oh, Mary!), Andy and Wendy Barnes (SIX), and Sonia Friedman (Merrily We Roll Along). Skillfully directed by Ellie Coote, the show features an electric Greek chorus of eight, fully aware they’re in a musical about a man who floated into the sky on lawn furniture.
The question—What makes a man want to fly in a lawn chair?—lands on multiple levels.
Played with a mix of earnestness and boundless energy by Charlie McCullagh, Larry somehow talks his wife, Carol (Evelyn Hoskins), and his best friend, Ron (the talented Akron Watson), into helping him with his dream of flight. McCullagh gets the “head in the clouds dreamer” just right.
If the musical is about chasing dreams, it’s also about loving people who chase their dreams. Here, Watson is outstanding in his role as Larry’s loyal best friend with more achievable dreams of his own. Lisa Howard grounds the story in her role as Margaret, Carol’s mother. Howard nails the role of a mom who loves her daughter, and therefore must help Carol help Larry, even though she thinks Larry’s nuts.
As Carol, Hoskins holds the story together and gives it weight with a series of stunning moments throughout the show.
Answering the question posed by the unlikely story requires narrative jiu-jitsu from Godfrey, who knows exactly how ridiculous this all sounds and leans into it with charm and precision. A first-time musical writer with a serious knack for structure, Godfrey delivers a brisk, sung-through piece that zips along with a cast of twelve and a tone that’s one part cheeky, one part heartfelt.
So much of the show is fun and funny, but not all of it. Larry has what is, by any measure, a stupid, dangerous dream that will lead to his untimely death, but there’s something, maybe just a little kernel of it, in his story that we get. Who among us doesn’t have crazy dreams? After all, if a dream makes sense, isn’t it just a goal? And who wants to go see a musical about a person achieving a goal?
For two hours, the show sails along, lightly bouncing on the clouds, before it digs into some quietly heavy questions about failure, fame, and what drives a person to launch themselves skyward on a whim. What sets it apart is the emotional current running beneath the absurdity. Godfrey threads the needle: he mines the surrealism of Larry’s backyard flight for all it’s worth, but he also treats the guy with genuine curiosity—maybe even admiration. He’s quirky, sure—but he’s also sincere.
And the songs are one banger after another, and the choreography and dancing are fire, and the stage is a loud, bright, colorful digital spectacle of a concert, set, amazingly, inside a balloon.
So, yeah, 42 Balloons is crazy good. Both crazy and really, really good. But–one last pun, I promise–there is danger on this balloon flight to Broadway. What makes this show great is its beautiful mix of hope, dreams, love, energy, and weirdness. It’s not a perfect show.
There will be changes—but stay weird, 42 Balloons!
You are already mighty close to a Pixar-esque jukebox musical. Don’t go any closer! You already make a hard right turn in the second act, but that’s ok! Stay fun! Stay funny for as long as you can!
When we are at our best, we are on the ground with people we love who love us even though we are crazy, dreaming of how great it’s gonna be when we’re up in the air!
42 Balloons runs through the end of June at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, 800 E Grand Ave., Chicago. You can get tickets here. For more Chicago reviews or show information, see chicagoonstage.com or theatreinchicago.com.