Theatre review: Hot Mess

Keeping things short and, for a while at least, sweet at Southwark Playhouse's main house is Jack Godfrey (music and lyrics) and Ellie Coote's (book) two-hander musical imagining the relationship between the Earth and Humanity as a rom-com: Inevitably, it's a Hot Mess. Earth (Danielle Steers) is on the lookout for a new dominant species after things got a bit dull with the amoebas, and the hot and heavy relationship with Tyrannosaurus Rex ended in meteor-related tragedy (he was never much good at hugs anyway.) Hu (Tobias Turley) is interested in her, but with his obsession with growing wheat he seems a bit nerdier than the apex predators she's used to. He manages to charm her though and they begin a millennia-long romance in which she helps him become all that he can be - largely by offering him access to her many resources.

This environmental musical makes for an immensely charming evening, even as we know from the start exactly how things are going to sour. Steers and Turley confidently steer (ha) the story as the balance of power flips from her serene confidence to his jittery arrogance.

It's very funny, although I would have liked designer Shankho Chaudhuri's gag book titles to have been a bit more visible, as even from the fourth row I could only make out Earth reading Lonely Planet, and later when there's flooding what I think said Great Precipitations. The show really leans into its high concept for comic effect, from Earth seductively inviting Hu to explore the natural resources down below, to her starting to suspect by the 1960s that he might be cheating on her with the Moon.

Coote's production steams ahead with huge pace as it packs the history of the planet into an hour, so we're quickly at a point where the cute boy turns into the (literally) toxic boyfriend, gaslighting her with actual gas (and oil and coal.) The energy means we're catapulted into this much sadder part of the story, and the leads carry us through the drama as confidently as with the comedy. Pleasingly, Godfrey and Coote's story finds a kind of, slightly twisted but definitely satisfying, happy ending.

For a short musical this is packed with songs, and Godfrey's given us a steady stream of catchy '90s-style pop bangers - helped by the cast recording being played out as the audience left, "Better With Time" actually passed the test of staying stuck on my internal jukebox the whole journey home. Steers and Turley deliver all the energy and enthusiasm you could ask of them, and the songs match the former's distinctively deep voice so well Phill wondered if they might have always been written with her in mind. Sure, it's the story of a relationship so toxic it leads to an extinction event, but nobody said it couldn't be fun.

Hot Mess by Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote is booking until the 8th of November at Southwark Playhouse Elephant.

Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.