by A musical theater show of a fresh nature, relegated to the fringes or a small-scale provincial production, is challenging the established order in London’s West End this season.
A wave of new, strange productions will run side by side The phantom of the Opera– all those great classics and musicals that recreate a familiar movie title or give rise to a superstar’s legacy.
Most recently to graduate to the big league Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), this weekend’s award-winning British musical is set to run at the Criterion theater on Piccadilly from April. “It hasn’t sunk in yet,” said writer Kit Buchan. “It’s like an answer to a prayer that it’s going to be in the West End. But it feels so unlikely: I’m not sure I’ll really believe it until I see the curtain go up.”
Buchan wrote the show with his friend Jim Barne after they decided to stop writing songs for the band they had been playing with since school. Audiences and critics responded enthusiastically. The show, which has been developed over seven years and is now concluding a sold-out run at the Kiln in north London, has won rave reviews. The IS Evening Standard the critic said that the two-hander “matches its wide-eyed hero and sardonic heroine with just the right mix of sugar and sour”.
Hopes are high, too, for another rare show, Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder!. It impressed the critics on the Edinburgh fringes, and is now set for a run in the West End.
“New British musicals are having a moment, and that’s very exciting,” said its producer, Francesca Moody, who brought Bridge’s Phoebe Waller Fleabag to the stage. “This is the riskier end of a risky business, but there is a group of producers willing to tackle it by backing writers with shows that are not based on existing book or film titles. And the West End has room for them in the ecosystem.”
Dear Parody, Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder!, which began as a side project for writers Jon Brittain and Matthew Floyd Jones. Moody understands that maintaining the magic of this small production in a large London theater will be crucial. “You have to hold on to the things that made it successful, like the reuse of the set and the multiplexing. Those features satisfy the speed and velocity of the movement.”
By transferring to the West End, these small shows will follow a path blazed by new musicians recently including the music of Jack Godfrey. Children, is tipped to return to the West End after trying out last year, and Operation Mincemeat, a talkie hit that has garnered massive audience loyalty. The charge was in charge six, Music about the women of Henry VIII. Written by two students for the Edinburgh festival, it has made an impact on a large audience internationally. The next place will be in the West End Started for Tenadapted by Emma Hall & Charlie Parham from the book by David Nicholls and the 2006 film, with songs by pop-punk composer Tom Rasmussen.
“Young people are now interested in musicals,” Barne said. The show he created with Buchan, a hilarious riff on the romcom, has already won two industry awards. In the lead roles are Dujonna Gift and Sam Tutty, the winner who both starred Dear Evan Hansen – as young wedding guests who meet at JFK airport. The show, originally called The Seasonwhich ran in several provincial theaters before catching the eye of Kiln’s artistic director, Indhu Rubasingham, who will be taking on Rufus Norris at the National Theatre.
As the old saying goes, the fastest way to the bright lights of the West End is to “practice, practice, practice”. In recent years, however, it seems that it was faster to compose jukebox music, or adapt a hit movie. Concerts based on songs by Tina Turner, Whitney Houston or Frankie Valli, as well as all-singing, all-dancing versions of films such as Mrs. Doubtfire, Back to the Future and A beautiful womanto be at the forefront recently.
People look down on musicals because they obviously want to be loved. But we felt freed from the pressure of raising children. You can just be entertaining
But these small, new musicals are proof that practice and new creative talent can still be counted on: “We joked that if we ever did a show in the West End, we’d both get a tattoo,” Buchan said. , performance. poet, who also wrote for the Observer. That tattoo looks certain now, and it will be a small bat, not the wedding cake of the show’s title.
Neither have plans to quit their day jobs just yet, however: they claim rumors of the money to be made from a West End musical are exaggerated. Buchan, like the hero of his show, works in a cinema, and Barne as a music publisher in Wiltshire.
Despite many young people having a prejudice against musicals, they were drawn to the form because they wanted to write songs “that were more responsive to the story, and the characters and, of course, the audience”. says Buchan. “People look down on musicals because they obviously want to be loved. But we felt freed from the pressure of raising children. You can just be entertaining.”
