Cake: The Marie Antoinette Playlist, The Other Palace Review
Photo by Mark Senior
Written by Cathie for Theatre and Tonic
Following the recent success of historical-based musicals including &Juliet and SIX, Cake: The Marie Antoinette Playlist has arrived at The Other Palace this September. Based on the infamous Affair of the Diamond Necklace, we see Jeanne (Renée Lamb) plan a four-step heist to steal the biggest diamond necklace in history to reclaim her family’s lost fortune and pedigree. This is well known by historians as one of the triggers of the French Revolution. However, based on the book by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Tasha Taylor Johnson, this one act musical retells this story with a feminist gaze on the powerful duo of Marie Antonette and Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy.
Renée Lamb is phenomenal as Jeanne. Simultaneously our all-seeing narrator and main propeller of the plot, she guides the audience throughout the show. Her singing voice has great range and she uses it to hook the audience and engage us with the severity of her plight and the hardships of Paris in general quite well. Zizzi Strallen is absolutely magnificent as Marie Antoinette, at turns playful, furious and vulnerable she holds the audience in the palm of her hand. She discusses her privilege and struggles with great candour and there is also a video shot of her going through areas in The Other Palace which is very reminiscent of recent Jamie Lloyd productions. As a performing duo, they are powerful and sincere enough to knock the socks off of everyone in the West End. The ensemble (Zara MacIntosh Emma Robotham-Hunt, Tarik Frimpong, Sunny Lee Manu Sarswat ) also deserves a huge amount of credit as they are constantly dancing on stage the entire show. Nicole (Millie O’Connell) brings a lot of vulnerability and a heartfelt desire for justice for the people of Paris. Her strong performance brings the most reality and highlights the sheer anger the people felt for their struggles felt most profoundly. Without her and Travis Ross as Cardinal, the show would feel a lot flatter and less rounded. Travis Ross was absolutely hilarious as a “Very Important Man” and represents the toxic historical masculinity we all love to hate. He is brilliant as a foil to the rest of the cast and in representing the attitudes of French society then as a whole.
The set is very simple, with a raised dais in the shape of a 2-tiered cake (a nod to the infamous phrase) as a way to focus the audience’s eyes on the centre of the otherwise bare stage. This show is heavily reliant on CGI backgrounds and swirling of words which sometimes adds weight and clarification to the songs and sometimes distracts. It also has the added symbolism of a pop concert and considering that Pop genre power musicals seem all the rage at the moment, it fits quite well with London’s West End scene. The choreography by Drew McOnie and the music by Jack McManus and Tasha Taylor-Johnson are absolutely fantastic. There are some extremely catchy songs that I found myself singing for days afterwards.
Although said actors are absolutely brilliant and make this show really fabulous, the focus is more on the banging show numbers as opposed to smaller moments of character building. However, that said the connections we do see are beautiful. The pace is also fast and consistently building the tension up to create the powerful ending and literal lighting of the fuse to spark the revolution. The ending is rather unrealistic but a pretty uplifting way to end a musical. It is fun, feisty and strongly contemporary despite being set in the late 18th century. It’s the perfect show for a light-hearted night out and it's rollicking good fun. Unfortunately, this musical is coming to an end far too soon in London. From the wild cheers and dancing audience I have hope that it can eventually return to London in one form or another.
At The Other Palace until 29 September 2024.
★ ★ ★ ★.5
