An enthusiastic production of [title of show] is good fun at Southwark Playhouse but it really is a musical for those who already love musicals
“Let’s just put the show out there and see what happens”
It’s a wonder we don’t see revivals of [title of show] more often, it being a gift to fans of musical theatre and a relatively cheap production to mount (four chairs!). Southwark Playhouse is the latest venue to give it a go (Above the Stag did wonders with it in 2019 and I saw it at the Landor back in 2013 with a cast of everyone with a first name beginning with S) but as affectionately as I regard it in my mind, it is easy to forget how its intrinsically niche nature forever limits its reach.
Hunter Bell (book) and Jeff Bowen’s (music and lyrics) meta-musical of musical theatre injokes depicts two guys called Hunter and Jeff responding to a call for submissions to the New York Musical Theatre Festival. And looking for inspiration, they decide to write a show about two guys called Hunter and Jeff responding to a call for submissions to the New York Musical Theatre Festival, using their own words verbatim and bringing two friends onboard as well.
And as such, every single opportunity for a stagey callback, a musical theatre reference, a lyrical gag is taken in a densely packed script. If you’re in on the injokes, there’s much to amuse; if you’re a casual viewer, too much might fly over your head. Musically, the score is appealing but lacking in musical variation, resulting in too few of the songs registering as classics of the genre and too many of them blurring into an anodyne whole.
Christopher D. Clegg’s production is solidly done, if not quite spectacular. Hazel McIntosh and Alistair Lindsay’s respective set and lighting design create some interest beyond those chairs. Jacob Fowler and Thomas Oxley are sparkily good fun as the boys Hunter and Jeff; Abbie Budden and Mary Moore are also good value for fun even if the script naturally affords them less to do. Good fun all around then, but definitely for a niche audience.
