Sunday In The Park With George, A Little Night Music, La Cage Aux Folles; what do they have in common? Apart from successfully transferring from the Menier Chocolate Factory to the West End, they are all figures of fun in the London Bridge venue’s latest production, Forbidden Broadway.
No show, especially not the Menier’s own productions, is safe from Forbidden Broadway’s satirical eye. Its quartet of performers had better hope the West End’s most powerful don’t hold grudges, as Cameron Mackintosh, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Disney all take stick at the hands of Gerard Alessandrini’s rewritten song lyrics in this cutting review show.
Here the West End’s most recognisable show tunes are performed as you have never heard them before; the original, emotional, heartfelt lyrics replaced with mocking witticisms, hilarious parody, biting satire and downright silliness, all achieved with the metaphorical slight of hand that would have Derren Brown blushing.
Billy Elliot becomes Silly Idiot, Mackintosh sings about souvenirs, Harry Potter enchants the audience in a rather unusual style and if you thought the puppets in Avenue Q were raunchy, you will be surprised at the further step they can take.
Philip George’s direction keeps the show moving at a sprint, new songs coming round like they were on Les Misérables’s revolve, which also becomes a figure of fun.
Forbidden Broadway was first staged in New York in 1982, but Alessandrini’s constant updating keeps it fresh, the current production taking pot shots at Spring Awakening’s early closure, internet gossip, projected scenery, Susan Boyle, as well as brilliantly sending up the recent large scale production of The King And I at the Royal Albert Hall.
If the cast’s talent was not of the highest quality, it could all seem a bit bitter, but Anna Jane Casey, Alasdair Harvey, Steven Kynman and Sophie Louise Dann have the vocal dexterity and comic timing to stun and succeed at every turn, shape-shifting to cover almost every role in the West End, some of which they have actually played.
While Sarah Brightman and Liza Minnelli might seem a touch dated, there is enough of a blend of classic and contemporary to please any musical theatre fan with a sense of humour.
MA