Theatre review: One Man Musical

One of this year's best-reviewed Edinburgh shows gets a limited London run as musical comedy duo Flo & Joan take on writing duties, but a back seat in performance as they provide musical support and cede centre stage to the most influential man in musical theatre history (he assures us,) His Brittanic Excellency, The Rev. Dr Baron Dame Sir Andrew Lloyd Lord Webber BA (Hons) MEng, QC, MD, P.I, FSB. One Man Musical sees George Fouracres as ALW go over his life story, from his perfectly normal childhood as an obsessive fan of gothic architecture, to his first marriage to Sarah One, whom he met while she was at school and he... wasn't, but everything was definitely above board. She was old enough to drive at the time, anyway.

Then there's his extensive back catalogue of musicals (or musicools, because he was and is considered very cool,) every single one of which was a colossal global success, and nobody's heard of By Jeeves anyway.

Flo & Joan have written a lot of very funny songs that include little references to ALW's musicools rather than going for too much all-out parody, and with a show this silly they couldn't have got a more appropriate lead than Fouracres (who seems to have been given a lot of freedom from the writers and director Georgie Staight to ad-lib, which is just as well given he'd have probably done it anyway - ALW's attempt at off-the-cuff crowdwork is probably the most memorably deranged sequence.) He certainly throws himself into the performance, maybe too much - in my second show today to get stopped for technical problems, he sweated so much he knocked out all the radio mics and had to finish the show with a handheld one.

In what is essentially a narcissist delivering a stream of gags about how he came up with ideas for his shows, ALW talks us through getting inspiration from the world's coolest book (the Bible,) "a musical about gorgeous fascist Eva Peron, played by gorgeous fascist Elaine Page," and wooing Sarah Two by writing her a musical about the most romantic premise imaginable: Kidnapping a woman and locking her in your basement to sing to you. (He's now married to Sarah Three; she's not actually called Sarah but it can be hard to get used to change.)

Eventually he's haunted by the Phantom, asking if he'd like to mention how any of the post-Sunset Boulevard musical did, or any of his more questionable actions (like his House of Lords voting record, or the eliminated contestants on Over the Rainbow having to hand him their shoes before being flown into the rafters of the BBC studios, where they remain to this day. "I sniffed every shoe!") Yes, it's basically another of those shows I have no real review for other than listing favourite gags - its eccentric scheduling at Soho Theatre meant it was a tricky one for me to fit in, but it was worth it.

One Man Musical by Flo & Joan is booking in repertory until the 30th of November at Soho Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Avalon.