So let's tell you a bit about the show. It's a West End musical with four characters. It's interesting that they decided to make it a West End show with such a small cast, wait, hold on, it's interesting they decided to make it a West End show because it's TERRIBLE. You'd think, "four character, no plot, probably a lot of character development and intricate relationships." Negative, senor. Didn't learn a thing about these boring flat characters. I did fall asleep pretty quickly for a good chunk but I'm sure nothing happened. Mind you, this is a West End musical; people shouldn't be sedated. "Well, at least it's going to be nearly three hours of well-written witty dialogue." Nein, Gretel. It's some of the most terrible writing EVER. Full of ridiculous cliches that are kind of not cliches because they're just not used correctly or they don't make sense. Every two lines is some sort of metaphor or simile that, if you're actually listening, make you go, WHAT? Like, "She's always smiling, like a shark about to attack," or "He's like an open book, I can run circles around him." I'm not lying to you, EVERY OTHER LINE in the whole damn show. If they had cut all that terribleness it would have been half the length.
Okay, bad writing, bad characters, but the score! Fabulous songs, right? Nyet, Comrade. I can sing you the songs. Just sing a random note for every syllable in this blog post and you got it. I never really knew why there was a song where there was. It was always like, what's going on? why is a song necessary? what is he even singing about? The lyrics were terrible, but that didn't matter because you were cringing at the actual music. I heard a couple songs at West End Live, and thought, eh, these are like the excessively artsy atonal songs. Turns out, they're all atonal. And not atonal like Light in the Piazza, where it's interesting, but atonal where it's clearly very difficult for the actors to sing because it's a bunch of random notes that don't sound good together (put that on top of the fact that all but one were not very good anyhow...). The phrasing and notes are completely unintuitive and I felt bad for the poor singers who just had to jump around randomly and make everyone cringe. And every song ended on the most incomplete cadence ever. Like me ending this sentence on a. Yeah, it's like, come on, one more note that makes it a closing note or an ending. COME ON. But no. Just terrible. It actually hurt at times, when I wasn't convulsing in laughter thinking about how someone actually approved the songs and the show in general. I had to cover my ears because it hurt that badly. I think the background score might have been better than the songs, since they kind of didn't go together, but when I think about it, it sounded kind of like it belonged in a black & white film noir. Better than the songs yes, but still not very good.
So to sum up, no plot, undeveloped characters, unsingable songs and terrible score, bad musical. It's the reason people don't like developing original new musicals. Who decided to greenlight this one? Why did they think people would think watching old people do nothing singing bad songs and saying annoying things for three hours would be a hit on the West End (which even if they suck have to at least be entertaining)? Or anywhere?
Finally, if you think I'm being snobby or picky. Probably about 2/3 of the stalls left at intermission. Sad, I know. I would have left too but I felt bad and had nothing better to do (i.e. had no paint to watch dry). Mean as it is (to the audience), they've got to pull the "In My Life" tactic and get rid of that intermission. Okay, I'm done being mean. Skip this show.
