The creators of smash hit musical SIX, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, have done it again with their new show for the Gen Z age – Why Am I So Single?.
Where SIX was all about girl power, this show delves deep into a specific personal relationship and is said to be semi-autobiographical.
It breaks ground being the first time a non-binary character has been the lead role in a West End musical. Add to that Jo Foster, who plays Oliver is non-binary, and so is co-creator Marlow.
Harking back to Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland’s “let’s do the show right here”, the writers take away the fourth wall and Oliver and best friend Nancy talk to us direct about their latest project – to write a big fancy musical.
So, once we get over the double idea of show within show, it’s down to the mechanics of writing. Complete with storyboard full of post-its they explore their loveless lives to provide the answer to the show’s title.
Marlow and Moss have two important motifs to help us and their characters along the way: an obsession with TV series Friends and the “I got off the plane” episode where Rachel comes back to Ross, and secondly the musical Oliver!.
Hence Oliver and Nancy as our principals, and some lame other name checks – agent Fay Gin, and new buddy Artie – or Art Full-Dodger.
This is important because these two flimsy things are at the core of their rather boring sofa-bound existence. Helping them along the way in the cleverest idea of the night are a singing and dancing ensemble who double as Oliver’s fridge, pot plant, curtains, coat rack and dustbin. Trust me it’s funny and it works in a warm emotional kind of way.
There are big musical numbers to develop the arc of Oliver and Nancy’s stories, which depend on social media and dating apps.
Stand-outs are Meet Market, 8 Dates and C U Never, which gives us Artie (Noah Thomas) and ensemble tapping their feet as they tap away on their phones rejecting hard to-get dates. Meet Market – get the pun? – is highlighted with our two stars wheeling prospective dates round in shopping trolleys.
Just In Case is, for me, the highlight song of lost love, but it’s matched in Act Two with the heart-rending Lost – both delivered with tenderness and guts by Leesa Tulley’s Nancy.
But ultimately this is Oliver’s story and non-binary performer Jo Foster makes us laugh and cry with their enormous sense of good fun, timing and a belting voice.
In a short red kilt – “It’s not a skirt,” they tell us – they transform at one moment into a Marilyn Monroe flowing gown for a sensational pastiche song and dance number with a chorus of pizza delivery boys.
And in Act Two they have a queer recognition anthem Disco Ball, which has strong resonances to that other queer musical Jamie.
There are diversions that don’t work, like the melodramatic song and dance about a bee loose in the flat, and the show overall is about 20 minutes too long for my liking.
I’d like more of the inner life of a non-binary single person, and a bit less whingeing, but I am absolutely sure this is going to be a great hit with the younger audience it is clearly aimed at. For that it gets four stars. And we do eventually find out why they’re single but I’m not telling.
And to finish on the Oliver theme: Consider Yourself lucky I told you it would be a hit and don’t say in a few weeks’ time I’d Do Anything to get a ticket.
The show is playing at London’s Garrick Theatre. Tickets HERE
All pics by Danny Kaan
You must be logged in to post a comment.