[title of show], Southwark Playhouse Borough Review

[title of show] production image. Photo by Danny Kaan

Written by Kathryn for Theatre and Tonic

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review

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After its successful run in New York in 2006 and 2008, this wacky musical makes its debut at Southwark Playhouse.

It’s a musical about friends writing a musical. Jeff and Hunter, struggling writers, hear news of a theatre festival and decide to enter with only a few weeks to prepare. In their loss of knowing what to write about, they start to write their day to day and put it to song. They rope in their friends, Heidi and Susan, and the piece takes flight. It takes you through the play’s inception and its run at the Vineyard Theatre in New York, all the way to Broadway. It is packed full of musical theatre references and in a way is a love letter to Broadway both past and present.

The simple set of only four chairs and a piano are perfectly placed for the constant chaos of the musical numbers and the quick changes from scene to scene. Christopher D. Clegg’s direction of the piece is an excellent use of Southwark Playhouses space, but some of the changes did happen so quickly that you miss the VoiceOver voicemails that play in the blackouts because the audience is still applauding the end of a song and jokes were missed. It also felt that a lot went into the staging of the musical numbers, but not when the characters were talking to one another. They tended to sit in the same place staring into the void and the scenes dragged in comparison to when they were singing.

The four actors were wonderfully cast (Jacob Fowler, Abbie Budde, Mary Moore and Thomas Oxley) and their voices were pitch perfect both individually and in harmonising together. You could tell they were having fun performing this piece and the chemistry between them was palpable in the space. Even the one liners from the pianist were perfectly timed and the audience was right there with them through every key change.

[title of show] is bright, fun and packed full of jokes. I did find, being American myself, that some of the jokes were lost to a British audience, and some of the references are a bit dated, but there is still a place for this show in today’s UK theatre scene. However I will say this, this show was very much written for musical theatre fans. If you are not a lover of the musical theatre repertoire, than this is probably not the show for you.  

At Southwark Playhouse Borough until 30 November 2024. 

★★★.5