Being young and single never seemed so fun, full of energy, yet full of contradictions in this high-concept meta-musical, Why Am I So Single? The fourth wall is not so much broken as endlessly pummelled as the cast talks directly to the audience. Frequently. But essentially, it’s about young people with neuroses and smartphone addiction exploring why they can’t find love in present-day London. Told with a series of spectacular songs and dance scenes in this new musical from the creators of Six, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss. But while we don’t necessarily get an answer that rings true to the question posed by this show, you are likely to be distracted mainly by the energy and the songs. It’s currently playing at the Garrick Theatre. A new musical based on an original idea, the premise is that Oliver (Jo Foster) and Nancy (Leesa Tulley) - which are not their real names but names taken from their favourite musical, Oliver - have to write a new musical but are stuck for an idea. So, after e
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It becomes her: Death Takes A Holiday @charingcrossthr
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A terrific story and some fine singing from its sexy leads makes this encounter with death enjoyable. But you get the feeling that that this near death experience could be more enjoyable if the music was not so repetitive and loud. It's currently playing at Charing Cross Theatre.
The piece is set after the first World War in a villa near Lake Garda in Italy. The show opens with the leading lady Grazia (Zoë Doano) standing in a speeding car heading back home after a night on the town. She's recently engaged but you're given the impression from the start she is a woman willing to flirt with death.
Then there is an accident and she is thrown from the car. But struck by her beauty death spares her life. He starts to wonder what makes people fear him. He also is in need of a break after being so busy during the war. And so he visits her father and tells him he wants to experience humanity for a weekend. At his villa. Where Grazia and her fiancee are staying.
The engagement is going to be in for a rocky time that weekend. You're half expecting some not at all appropriate duets to take place between an engaged young lady and a mysterious Prince. And they do. And the performances by Death (Chris Peluso) and Doano keep you captivated, even as the music becomes melodramatic, increasingly saccharine and loud.
And it is a pity that music gets in the way of a story about the the lure and temptation to flirt with death. There is much to admire about the story and its musing on life. If death appears as a handsome man does that make it more appealing? During the weekend the characters find increase vitality, only to realise that nothing had changed. It was just a temporary reprieve from dying.
There is some fine singing with the rest of the cast although it isn't clear why there are so many American characters at a villa near Lake Garda in 1922. Perhaps we are to assume that prohibition (like today's Trumpism) forced them abroad.
Comic relief comes with the household help and doddery Countess Danielli (Gay Soper). She delivers a line about losing her virginity on a gondola in such an evocative way you feel you were there.
The book is by Thomas Meehan and Peter Stone and music and lyrics by Maury Yeston. It is based on an Italian play by Alberto Casella La Morte In Vacanza (Death on Holiday). Their intention was to make a chamber musical and the smaller space of Charing Cross works well here.
Directed by Thom Southerland, Death Takes A Holiday is at Charing Cross Theatre until 4 March. Chris Peluso is Death until 11 February and then James Gant (currently playing the servant Fidele) takes over from 13 February).
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue . Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple. The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial security
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
