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Promotional poster for Hit Machine at Soho Theatre, featuring two men against a white background with bold orange 'HIT MACHINE' text and the tagline 'One Song Could Save You.'

HIT MACHINE at Soho Theatre Review ★★★

HIT MACHINE – a play about family, art and the making of music makes its London debut but doesn’t feel quite finished.

The world premiere of Jonathan Caren‘s Hit Machine arrives at Soho Theatre with How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor and Broadway’s Noah Galvin (Dear Evan Hansen) making their London stage debuts. They are joined by BAFTA award-winning music artist, composer and filmmaker Khalil Madovi.

(c) Bautista Araya

THE STORY

Big-time music producer Wes (Radnor) is living the high life on the back of his success. When his less fortunate brother Alex (Galvin) turns up on the doorstep, looking to mend bridges and catch a break, long-buried family tensions resurface. The two brothers find themselves at odds, circling decisions that could make or break the bond between them.

Into this arrives Wes’s latest hip-hop talent, Defy the Leader, who has been caught on camera in a fight and is seeking refuge at the mansion while the scandal blows over. More importantly, he is searching for the next big hit to smooth things over. What follows is a collision of art, ego and family loyalty, as the machine that Wes has built begins to consume the very people who fed it.

Featuring original music by Ben Harper and CJ Harper woven through the action, Hit Machine is a play with music rather than a musical, with the songs serving the story.

THE CAST

Radnor brings charm and unease to the character of Wes – a man who has achieved success and is only beginning to understand what that has cost him.

Galvin, as the scrappier, hungrier Alex, works nicely alongside Radnor – the chemistry between them helping the sibling story to hit harder.

Khalil Madovi, as music artist Defy the Leader, is the central character who is integral to keep the story together – the prize for the two brothers to fight over.

IS IT GOOD?

At just under ninety minutes, Hit Machine has a very intimate feel. It is a play about how pain becomes art and what gets lost when the machine starts feeding on the people who made it.

The show has real potential but feels more like a first draft of something bigger. Scenes could easily be added to make a two-act play (in fact, it feels like scenes have been cut in order to shorten it) and it feels like there is a fuller version of this story waiting to be told.

Hit Machine has something – but it left me wanting more.

★★★

Reviewed by West End Wilma

Hit Machine plays at Soho Theatre until Saturday 15 August 2026

 

MORE ABOUT THE CAST

Josh Radnor is a filmmaker, actor, and musician best known for his nine-season run as the star of the Emmy-winning How I Met Your Mother. He wrote and directed two feature films (happythankyoumoreplease & Liberal Arts) both of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the former winning the 2010 Audience Award. Recent TV: Hunters (opposite Al Pacino) and the critically acclaimed Fleishman Is in Trouble. On stage he most recently starred in the world premiere of Itamar Moses’ Pulitzer Prize-nominated The Ally at The Public Theater for which he received a Lucille Lortel nomination, Richard Greenberg’s The Babylon Line at Lincoln Center, and the Broadway production of Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Disgraced. He made his Broadway debut in 2002 in The Graduate opposite Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone. He released two indie-folk albums with Aussie musician Ben Lee as Radnor & Lee. His releases as a solo artist include One More Then I’ll Let You Go, Eulogy: Volume 1 & Volume 2.

Noah Galvin is an actor, singer, writer, and producer. He wrote, produced, and starred in Theater Camp, which Noah co-wrote alongside Ben Platt, Molly Gordon, and Nick Lieberman. The musical comedy film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble. For his role as ‘Glenn’, Noah received a Best Supporting Performance nomination at the 2024 Independent Spirit Awards. He was the second actor to star as Evan in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, taking over from Ben Platt, whom he married in 2024. His other Broadway credits include Ogie in Waitress. He also starred in a one night only 50th anniversary concert of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Lincoln Center. On TV’s The Good Doctor he played ‘Dr. Asher Wolke’.

Khalil Madovi is an award-winning music artist, composer, writer, actor and filmmaker. After emerging in 2012 as Josh Carter in the hit TV series 4 O’Clock Club, for which he received the BAFTA award for Best Children’s Performer, he has gone on to embark on a diversified career in arts and entertainment, working across music, TV, film and theatre. After composing for and featuring in Can I Live?, for Complicité and The Barbican in 2021, he went on to design for Bush Theatre’s critically acclaimed Red Pitch, for which he received a Best Sound Design Offie nomination. Other credits include Nouveau Riche and New Diorama Theatre’s Brenda’s Got A Baby, The Old Vic’s This Is What The Journey Does and Bola Agbaje’s Gone Too Far! with the National Youth Theatre. In 2024 Khalil was nominated for a Black British Theatre Award for his sound design and composition work. Khalil most recently performed in Chadwick Boseman’s Deep Azure at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

 

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