Why Am I So Single? - Review

Garrick Theatre, London

***

Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss

Directed by Lucy Moss

Co-directed and choreographed by Ellen Kane

Leesa Tulley and company

It’s quite something for writers to have a brace of shows running simultaneously in the West End, but with Six at the Vaudeville and now Why Am I So Single? round the corner at the Garrick, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss have achieved that double.

Six was famously created around the wives of Henry VIII, lending itself to a tightly written book based on a rich chapter of world-famous history. It enjoyed a stratospheric and deserved rise from humble beginnings on the fringe to the globally touring phenomenon of modern musical theatre that it is today. Why Am I So Single? however, drawn from the lives of Marlow and Moss themselves, makes for a narrative that’s lightweight and superficial in comparison. While the pair's close platonic friendship and respective life stories may be touching, they do not support a 2 1/2 hour show that itself could do with a trim of at least 30 minutes.

Where Stephen Sondheim once brilliantly explored the angsts of being single in Company, Marlow and Moss offer little more than an immaculately produced evening of self-indulgent introspection and navel-gazing. Written by anyone other than these now acclaimed wunderkinder the production may well have struggled to gain traction and backing - that is if it were even conceived at all - let alone this big fancy West End opening that frames its commercial rollout.  

Amidst countless references to classic musicals and frequently smug breakouts across the fourth wall, Nancy and Oliver (played by Leesa Tulley and Jo Foster) are Marlow and Moss’s leading characters, effectively their onstage "fictional" representations. The show is technically whip-smart and while its lyrics may be repetitive and its melodies forgettable, both Tulley and Foster sparkle with performing excellence and gorgeous voices. Noah Thomas as their mutual friend Artie is also at the top of his game.

Ellen Kane’s choreography and co-direction is another of the evening’s stunning treats with her company drilled to a glorious visual perfection.  Atop the stage, Chris Ma’s eight-piece band are equally slick.

The storyline may be thinly crafted but who knows? With its Marlow and Moss imprimatur, Why Am I So Single? may yet appeal to Gen Z. It’s certainly been rolled in enough glitter!

Booking until 13th February 2025

Photo credit: Matt Crockett

Six The Musical - Review

Arts Theatre, London


***


Music and lyrics by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss
Directed by Lucy Moss and Jamie Armitage

The cast of Six The Musical

Beheadings are brutal and barbaric, whether they occurred 5 months or 5 centuries ago. And yet, with heads jauntily skewed, grim grins (albeit momentarily) and hand-held mics tightly grasped, the cast of Six The Musical make light of Henry VIII’s murderous misogyny. 

Judging by the response to the show, both in its sold-out Edinburgh run and now at London’s Arts Theatre, the passage of time appears to condone such laughter. To be fair there is occasional light shed on some of the unpleasantness associated with being one of Henry’s six wives - witness the sinister hands that grope and paw at Aimie Atkinson’s Katherine Howard. But for the most part the evening serves as a high-volume, sugar-coated history lesson, aimed at todays reality-TV entertained masses and not having to make them think too hard.

If the show’s moral compass may be adrift, at least its technical standards are excellent. Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss have written some sassy songs, Carrie-Anne Ingrouille’s whip-smart choreography is well drilled while Tim Deiling’s stadium-inspired lighting only adds to the rock gig feel of the piece.

One might have hoped that today’s Woke generation of theatre creatives might have delivered more from a musical treatment of one of English history’s most monstrous monarchs, although at (thankfully) a little over an hour long perhaps the creatives recognised the attention span of their target demographic.  Ultimately though the same old metropolitan hypocrisies prevail, with the show serving as little more than shallow entertainment for its prosecco-fuelled audiences. Marlow and Moss clearly have great technical and creative potential ahead of them – Six The Musical however deserves to be filed away in the history books, and soon.

Runs until 14th October, then tours

Photo credit: Idil Sukan