#EdFringe: I Wish My Life Were a Musical
★★★★★
A real and comedic insight into the lives of professional performers complete with wit, charm and incredible talent, you’ll leave feeling the magic of musical theatre and wishing you lived it daily - it’s impossible to stop smiling and laughing throughout!
The show is just about sold out and more people keep piling in, so my first thought is, how will I get up and join the kick line, as I promised to do on Twitter? (and was dead keen for, truly). A completely fun filled evening of musical theatre references and jazz hands, the show is a simply staging of a few chairs in a black box and instead focuses on duets, solos and quartets of the performers sharing a behind the scenes look at performing life. With a spot of coloured lighting and just a piano, the show is magic and makes you wish your life were a musical with the magic they are making on stage.
These performers are the real deal musical theatre professional performers, so you will be treated to excellence, real choreography, four part perfect harmonies. James Hume (who previously tread the boards in Les Miserables plenty of times), Felix Mosse (who I most recently saw in Aspects of Love at Southwark Playhouse), Charlotte O’Rourke (Queen of Mamma Mia) and Charlotte Anne Steen (Queen of heaps of shows including Bat Out of Hell, 42nd Street and more) are a perfect team, bringing their incredible energy, years of training, and sore feet from overly choreographed final dance numbers to this fringe musical spectacular.
Funny, witty, extremely clever: with writing by Alexander Bermange and direction Chris Whittaker, the show covers queuing to audition, the “I shouldn’t start with this but I’m sick’ song, how we treat standbys and understudies and how to deal divas and star casting. Complete with leading ladies and crazy fans, how to do a stage kiss, and you can’t close a show without an encore song, it encompasses everything we love and love to hate about musical theatre, it’s fans, punters and workers.
I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical plays at Underbelly Bristo Square in the Dairy Room until 26 August. More info.
