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.

Theatre review: Just For One Day

I've got to say I found the idea of Just For One Day a bit baffling, and having now seen John O'Farrell's jukebox musical setting the story behind the scenes of Live Aid to songs from the setlist, I still feel a bit vague about what exactly's going on at the Old Vic at the moment. I want to say the framing device is a young woman in the present day, Jemma (Naomi Katiyo) wanting to know more about the event for, I guess, a history project, but the use of multiple narrators muddles this. She gets help from Suzanne (Retired Lesbian Jackie Clune,) who was at Wembley for the concert, as well as Bob Geldof (Craige Els) himself, who for some reason is available to give the inside scoop. So in 1984 Bob sees a news report about a famine in Ethiopia and is horrified - by the suffering, the general indifference and lack of aid from wealthier nations, and from the fact that while he knows others will be upset by the story as well, it'll soon be forgotten by most people when the news cycle moves on.

Theatre review: Bat out of Hell

Could I have picked a more appropriately-titled show to see on this election night than Bat out of Hell?

When Colin and Harriet Loaf’s eldest son Meat said he wanted to be a professional musician they were understandably concerned, but fortunately for him he met musical theatre writer Jim Steinman, who was writing a futuristic Peter Pan musical because of course he was. He ditched the musical, used the songs on the album Bat out of Hell instead, and Mr Meat C. Loaf* became the king of 1980s and ‘90s power ballads, The End. BUT NO IT WASN’T THE END, because thirty-odd years later Steinman remembered about the musical and decided to finish it, make it completely fucking mental, and bolt “I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)” onto the end whether it really made sense or not, because people would be expecting that one. AND THEN IT GOT BOOKED INTO THE COLISEUM FOR THE SUMMER TO REALLY CONFUSE THE SHIT OUT OF OPERA FANS AND PUT THE ICING ON THE CAKE. And lo, it could not take itself any less seriously if it tried, and it was duly declared shitmazing† by some bloke on an internet blog.