Theatre review: Fiver

Southwark Playhouse's Large Theatre has long been a home for American musicals that never quite made it to the West End; could the Little (or whatever its equivalent ends up being in the new venues) find a similar niche as a home for new British musicals? It's only a couple of months since The Curious Case of Benjamin Button premiered there, and if Fiver doesn't come with quite the same gut-punch of having witnessed something very special, Alex James Ellison and Tom Lees' show about a five pound note shows off a prolific talent for composing a strong tune. The writer-composers also direct, and Ellison appears in the cast as a busker who kicks off the story when an audience member puts the titular note in his collection jar. He sticks around as narrator and guitarist for the rest of the show, but his co-stars Luke Bayer, Dan Buckley, Aoife Clesham and Hiba Elchikhe do most of the vocal heavy lifting from here on in.

They play dozens of characters as the banknote is donated, spent, given back in change, gifted and spent again; the show's high concept is that we see a snapshot of a different person's life for as long as they hold onto the fiver.

So the busker decides to pass the act of generosity on by giving it to a homeless man (Buckley,) and a couple of transactions down the line it becomes part of an annual tradition that a young man (Bayer) keeps up as a memorial to a dead friend. When one owner drops it, passers-by wrestle with their consciences over whether to keep it or give it back, and it later ends up down a stripper's g-string, up her nose, and down a toilet. After the interval there's a rather jarring 15-year gap before the note passes through the sewer system and resurfaces on a beach (it's one of the new "indestructible"* ones so the second act presumably takes place in the future) and we catch up with some characters from the first act in very different circumstances.

If the Large's replacement is the new Elephant and Castle Main House, then presumably the Little's will be one or both of the new London Bridge auditoria, and if that means they're railway tunnels as cool as the old studio space there then that'll be a definite upgrade: For as long as Southwark Playhouse has been in Newington Causeway the July show in the Little has been hampered by a sauna-like environment, and Fiver suffers from this too. The audience discomfort means it has to work harder to seem worth the effort, and the show's flaws stand out more: The portmanteau format means Ellison and Lees as writers have created a number of different tones that Ellison and Lees as directors haven't managed to make gel with each other. In particular there's a story arc going on in the background, of a teacher (Clesham) receiving anonymous letters from a pupil, that suddenly goes very dark and isn't resolved all that satisfactorily in the end.

And although there's a lot of fun and comedy in here, the writers have leaned a bit too heavily on sentiment - there's a fair bit of death in the background of the stories that's going for an easy emotional kick, and I couldn't quite work out if it was some of the characters or the show itself that had a bit of a patronising attitude to the homeless character. The song list is also too heavy on the ballads for my tastes, but even with that in mind there's no question that the songs are the absolute selling point of the show: There's a lot of playing around with style, with rap turning up in the toe-tapping opener "Change is Bringing Me Down," and a hint of country to "A Fiver's Destiny" to make sure there's a bit of variety overall.

And there's no denying that as songwriters Ellison and Lees are absolute masters of a hook - "Blame It On The Drink" being one of the stronger examples in a show that packs a lot of its best songs near the end. And if the episodic format doesn't always lend itself to a satisfying through-line, it does mean a lot of the songs feel like they could stand alone - crafting the elusive Breakaway Pop Hit shouldn't be a problem for this songwriting team. They're served well by the cast, with Clesham in particular taking the lion's share of the big numbers. Justin Williams' set is simple but does the job of cramming the cast and musicians into the small space and making it feel like they've got plenty of room to play with - and I liked the detail of the festival poster on the wall, where all the acts' names are euphemisms for £5. You'll need a lot of water and something to fan yourself with if you go to see Fiver, but even if it feels in need of a bit more finessing I'd say it was ultimately well worth it - and another small-scale show where a recording is probably a long way off, but would be welcome.

Fiver by Alex James Ellison and Tom Lees is booking until the 20th of July at Southwark Playhouse's Little Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Danny With a Camera.

*although see the state of some of the fivers I get given for the office lottery syndicate and then tell me they're indestructible