Review: WILD ABOUT YOU at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
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| Photo credit: Mark Senior |
That’s because the final scene is one that stirs up all kinds of emotions about grief, loss, regret, and, luckily, some hope thrown in too. The problem is, however, that it takes so long to get to that pretty good ending that you might not really care anymore. And that’s not because it’s a long musical (it clocks in at about two and a half hours including the interval), it’s just that it has a tendency to drag. There’s so much chatting and fluff and filler that seems completely unnecessary (why do we keep hearing about Michael’s religion when it comes to nothing?) that no matter how rousing the songs themselves might be (and some of them are, although others are not quite so successful), they barely do anything to lift the story out of the muddy puddle it’s turned into.
The cast was not to blame for this in the least – this was stacked with talent – and the story could be an interesting one (it revolves around a woman called Olivia (played beautifully by Rachel Tucker who, rather curiously, wears a silky nightdress all the way through, which means that if we had a penny for every time we’d seen her on stage in her nightwear, we’d have two pennies, which isn’t a lot, but it’s strange, nonetheless) who’s in hospital for a reason we’re never told and she’s suffering from amnesia. From there she has to remember all the important people in her life and work out who she needs to call and, in fact, who she really is).
These important people are her ex-husband, Michael (Eric McCormack), her ex-girlfriend, Jess (Tori Allen-Martin), her ex-lover, Thomas (Oliver Tompsett) (can you see a pattern here?), and her son, Billy (Jamie Muscato, who is criminally underused and only appears in the second act). Rounding out the cast is Todrick Hall who plays cliched male nurse Shea and Robin, who is perhaps the office manager in Limbo – yes, it does get strange.
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| Photo credit: Mark Senior |
If Act One was long and drawn out, telling us about unpleasant characters doing unpleasant things to one another in a rather underdeveloped and shallow way, Act Two was a different beast altogether, and from a stodgy kitchen sink drama with music, we’re suddenly plonked in the middle of a ghost story wherein Olivia has to go back to earth to keep an eye on her son, and Robin takes her, tutting and muttering all the time about it (or something – it was a little hard to keep up at that point).
The second act is something of a revelation for all its weirdness. It was tighter, more focused, and the songs were infinitely better than we’d heard previously (even the reprises were an improvement), which made the potential for this musical all the more frustratingly missed.
There is some good here – that slap to the face of an ending is definitely one of them – but right now it’s lost in the confusion of trying to do too much. It might be better to strip it back and turn it into a one-act 90-minute musical that could tell the story much more succinctly and keep the audience’s attention for a lot longer. As it is, when you look at your watch at the internal expecting two or more hours to have gone by and it’s only an hour and ten minutes, that can’t be a good sign.
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