SIN AND SALVATION. Written by musical director Jonny Blundell and director Nigel Vermaas. Jamie Jupiter is Johnny Cash with musical and dramatic support from Jonny Blundell, Sarah McArthur and Daniel Franks. At The Baxter Studio, Cape Town until 28 March 2026. MEGAN CHORITZ reviews.
I was not predisposed to liking this show. I don’t like tribute shows, especially where musicians pretend to be dead people. I hate biographical musicals like Buddy Holly, and find the formulaic format of ‘news flash’ historical storytelling especially dreary. It is also particularly hard to get musicians inhabiting the people they are pretending to be to be believable. Even highly skilled actors struggle, let alone musicians.
But. I was won over by Sin and Salvation. It was a slow creep, through the music and performance, that had me foot tapping and head nodding, and finally completely taken in, despite my reservations.
Jamie Jupiter transforms into Cash
All credit must go to Jamie Jupiter, who I have known and appreciated as a musician for decades. I had no idea how much he could embody Johnny Cash. I had never considered it before, but he looks like Cash. And he has transformed his voice, developed his phenomenal lower register, and found the country sadness that Johnny Cash was famous for. I was blown away. Jamie has tapped into the range of musicality, emotion, humour and style that made Johnny Cash unique, and he portrays it with an ease and fluency that is breathtaking.
Loving Cash as an act of rebellion
I have high standards when it comes to Johnny Cash. My first moment of loving him was an act of rebellion against my father, who hated Cash. I immediately loved him and fell in love with country music as a teenager. Cash, Parton, Lyle Lovett, Patsy Cline were on rotation with Joni Mitchell, Joan Armatrading, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. My father went crazy as the music blared out of my depressed teenage bedroom while I sang along.
Cash was one of the few country singers who managed to go there, politically. His songs reflected the racism and injustice of a USA that punished the poor, black, indigenous and disenfranchised. He was truly ahead of his time.
Sin and Salvation is true to Cash
This production is beautifully true to the legacy of Cash, describing his successes and hardships, his loves and his addictions, right up to the final re-recordings of his huge body of work.
I am totally prepared to forgive momentary lapses in accents, irritating little caricature bit part moments, and silly costume malfunctions, for the greater and wholly convincing Johnny Cash experience.
Jonny Blundell, Sarah McArthur and Daniel Franks don’t miss a beat. Their support and commitment are matched by their musical magic, and they pull off what could be silly and trite.
By the end of the show, after journeying through a superbly curated selection of Cash’s songs, I had a lump in my throat, and a heart full of Ghost Riders in the Sky.
Book at Webtickets or Pick n Pay stores.
What: Sin And Salvation – The Story of Johnny Cash
Where: Baxter Studio, Cape Town
When: 25 to 28 March 2026
WS
