It Happened In Key West - Review

Charing Cross Theatre, London



***

Music, lyrics and book by Jill Santoriello

Additional Lyrics and book by Jason Huza

Book and Original Concept by Jeremiah James

Directed and choreographed by Marc Robin

Wade McCollum and Alyssa Martyn

After washing up from a shipwreck on the beaches of Florida’s Key West, German radiology technician Carl Tanzler (going by the name Count Carl Von Cosel) becomes besotted with a young local woman named Elena, believing her to be the true love he foresaw in a dream many years ago. Unfortunately for Carl, not only is Elena married, but after examining her he discovers that she has tuberculosis, a death sentence in the mid-1900s. Despite his best efforts, Carl was unable to save Elena, but in a bizarre act of devotion he removed her body from its final resting place, continuing to care for her corpse, in his own home, for 7 years!

While that plot may sound too far-fetched to believe, it is in based on a true story that inspired book writer Jill Santoriello and collaborators Jason Huza and Jeremiah James enough to create this gothic-comedy musical adaptation. 

In the hands of other creatives, the show could very well have ended up as rather more disturbing. A crank aspirant doctor experimenting on a trusting young women using untested electrotherapy, falling in love with her to the point of all-consuming infatuation and then stealing her cadaver is chilling stuff. But instead the story very much takes Tanzler’s side, portraying him as a well-meaning eccentric who is defending the woman he believes is destined to be his bride. And so despite the story’s inescapable morbidity Carl and Elena’s love story ends up as rather sweet and touching, at least for the most part.

American actor Wade McCollum leads the musical as the oddball Count. With unrelenting buoyancy, he easily sells Carl’s peculiar manifestation of love-sickness. Fantastic too, is Alyssa Martyn’s Elena. Although severely underwritten (perhaps to emphasise the possibility that Elena is a blank slate onto which Carl is projecting the woman of his dreams), Martyn is an enchanting presence on stage, conveying Elena’s sweetness and naiveté. Meanwhile in role of Mario, Elena’s brother-in-law, Johan Munir provides great support, his strained earnestness helping to ground the otherwise breezy outré romance. 

The success of this musical lives or dies on the ability of the audience to buy into Carl’s belief that he and Elena are divine soulmates. Whilst the first act sees them both embark on a sweeping arc, with the rousing tear-jerking act one closing number Undying Love acting as a tragic yet fitting ending to both characters’ journeys, the grisly novelty of Carl’s obsession with his love’s decaying cadaver, which act two relies so heavily upon, is harder to invest in. After the interval Carl comes across as less of an ardent romantic in mourning, and more the disturbed fanatic. Even though Santoriello’s witty book supports the second act with plenty of saturnine humour and Marc Robin’s direction is full of dark moments of physical comedy, there’s no escaping the fact that the second half lacks the pacing, stakes and congeniality of the first. The story’s uniqueness thus fizzles out long before the show comes to an end. 

Despite these shortcomings, It Happened In Key West takes risks which more often than not, pay off. As beguiling as it is macabre, this morbid musical comedy needs to be seen to be believed.

Runs until 18th August

Reviewed by Charlotte O'Growney

Photo credit: Darren Bell

The Clockmaker's Daughter - Review

Landor Theatre, London

****

Jennifer Harding

Written by Michael Webborn and Daniel Finn

Directed by Robert McWhir

As Carrie The Musical closes in Southwark, so another show about a misunderstood young woman, who's blessed with supernatural powers, opens south of the river. But where Carrie was the re-imagining of a classic modern horror story, The Clockmaker's Daughter in Clapham’s Landor Theatre is a boldly written new fairy tale.

There are hints of Alan Menken, Stephen Schwartz and Howard Goodall in the music as we learn how many years ago clockmaker Abraham made himself a clockwork young daughter named Constance (geddit?) to replace his young dead wife. Notwithstanding the potentially "mechanically incestuous" complications that the scenario suggests (and which need to be ironed out in the inevitable future re-writes), the very best of fairy tales, on close examination, are all horror stories and there are distinct nods to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as a starting point for this fable. We see Constance, like Dr Frankenstein's creature before her, learning to reason and to feel emotions and going on ultimately to be shunned by the world around her.

The plot is simple - and as Constance goes around the village performing acts of kindness, she represents a wholesome focus for the story to pivot upon. Her craving a human mortality only adds to the story's poignancy and with the inclusion of an appropriately boo-worthy villain, the show offers some gorgeous potential.

That this story works at all is largely due to the outstanding performance of Jennifer Harding in the title role. Robert McWhir has coaxed from her a subtly portrayed reality that convinces us of her soulless plight. Her robotic movements are just right, not too pronounced and Harding's gold-painted face defines her as being not of this world. Her singing is gorgeous too, making fine work of her big solos A Story Of My Own and the climactic Clockwork.

Jo Wickham hams it up magnificently (though she could shout a bit less) as the wicked Ma' Riley, out for Constance's downfall, Alyssa Martyn convinces as a charming young bride Amelia, whilst elsewhere the large company numbers again demonstrate Robbie O'Reilly's ability to achieve impressive ensemble work in the Landor's compact space, with both Keep It To Yourself and Market Day being cleverly staged numbers that were easy on both eye and ear. 

David Shields' stage design works wonders with a set that's a combination of trucks, projections and ingenious contraptions and credit too to Richard Lambert's lighting work that for the most part enhances both ambience and location.

This ain't the finished product yet, but it's a damn good work in progress. The show needs to lose at least 30 minutes and its script would benefit from some expert treatment too. But make no mistake, The Clockmaker's Daughter is a charming show that celebrates the ingenuity of today's new writing - it's fun to watch and a bit of a tear-jerker too. This wonderful story deserves a future life, possibly as a Xmas show somewhere or who knows, possibly on screen? There's enough potential in the story to hook even the most Disney-fied of today's audiences and I wish it well.

Runs until 4th July 2015

Picture credit: Poppy Carter Portraits at www.poppycarterportraits.com