A slick, crowd-pleasing pub musical with strong vocals and staging, but its drink-led audience interaction, laddish tone and lack of story leave it feeling contrived.Rating
OK!
After a successful West End run and productions all over the world, including cruise ships, Choir of Man lands here at the New Wimbledon Theatre for the start of a UK tour. Right from the outset, I’m struck by the mixed crowd, and I’m not sure who the target audience is.
On entering the auditorium, the stage is already teeming with cast and audience members, with a queue back up the aisle. The set (designed by Oli Townsend) is part of the experience here and is a fully working bar, allowing the cast and audience to interact and buy a drink. This is a novelty and the opportunity for audience members who might never have been on a stage to do so; however, does it really need to be alcohol-based, and, dare I say it, is it a bit tacky? For those not partaking in stage activity, some of the cast members were also mingling in the stalls. I’m not sure that starting off with such a heavy reliance on the audience drinking is the best way forward.
As the show starts, audience members are somewhat hurriedly moved off the stage to their seats, the nine key cast members remain, and we see the quite convincing interior of ‘The Jungle’, our pub base for the evening. There’s banter aplenty and an introduction to each of the cast.
As an audience member, I’m not fully convinced by the ‘lads, lads, lads’ vibe here, and whilst I appreciate this has been performed hundreds of times now with different cast members dipping in and out, I didn’t feel any camaraderie or connection between them. It all felt rather cold, contrived and somewhat old-fashioned. Audience members being dragged onto the stage throughout feel uncomfortable and a tad lazy for a cheap laugh.
The individual cast members here are undoubtedly a talented bunch, and this is demonstrated with some stand-out vocal performances by Romantic (Sam Walter) and the rather cruelly named Bore (Aaron Pottenger), and modern, poetic monologues throughout by Poet (Nimi Owoyemi).
There is no story as such to the show, just nine blokes apparently sharing and caring in a pub, with some poetry, crowd-pleasing (and rather predictable) jukebox hits and randomly some tap dance and trumpet from Handyman (Jack Skelton) thrown in for good measure. But why?
Multiple shouts of ‘Cheers, everyone!’ to the audience became annoying, and I guess got a suitable reaction from those enjoying a drink too, but not all. As we approach the recently-added interval, a song by Joker (Ben Mabberley), Romantic and Hardman (Levi Tyrell Johnson), whilst standing at a urinal, is a crass, misjudged moment. Whilst amusing to some of the audience, the majority sat in bemusement, wondering why this should be included in any stage performance.
There’s more of the same post-interval. A collective jukebox number with two local choirs is a redeeming feature, but it is the only goose-bump moment from a 90-minute show.
There’s no doubt that this production will run and run, and it certainly has mass-market appeal. The staging, lighting and music are great, even if predictable and sometimes not to everyone’s taste. The all-male cast, though, would benefit from some kind of storyline, some warmth and the addition of a female cast-member or two.
Creator & Producer: Andrew Kay
Creator, Producer & Director: Nic Doodson
Musical Supervisor, Vocal Arranger & Orchestrator: Jack Blume
Movement Director & Choreographer: Freddie Huddleston
Monologue Writer: Ben Norris
Scenic Designer: Oli Townsend
Lighting Designer: Richard Dinnen
Costume Designer & Co-Scenic Designer: Verity Sadler
Choir Of Men plays at The New Wimbledon Theatre until Saturday March 21
before continuing a UK tour.
