Wild About You is billed as ‘a new musical in concert’ – two nights of huge names, performing Broadway star Chilina Kennedy’s newest offering, based on a book by Eric Holmes. Previously workshopped with titles ‘Without Her’ and ‘Call it Love’, this latest title is based on the name of one of the songs.
However, the reality was more of a fully formed musical production, rather than a staged concert, with some work left to do.
When amnesiac Olivia (Rachel Tucker) awakes in a hospital bed, it’s evident she needs to work out who she is, and why she can’t remember anything. With the help of a perfectly sassy nurse (Todrick Hall), by trawling through texts and emails, she begins piecing together her promiscuous past, and working out who the real Olivia is.
What transpired is somewhat complex – ready….? Ok, here we go!
With Olivia’s relationship with relatively religious Michael (Eric McCormack) being destined for the landfill of love, she moved to New York to explore things further with old flame Jess (Tori Allen-Martin). Whilst manoeuvring between the ups and downs of life with Jess, Olivia meets artist Thomas (Oliver Tompsett), who gets her pregnant with Billy (Jamie Muscato). Thomas disappears, Michael brings up Billy. Thomas shows back up. Michael doesn’t tell Billy about his real dad’s existence, and keeps all correspondence from his mother hidden, including the sweet Bad Day Boxes she put together for Billy, designed to improve a rubbish day. Keeping up? Because that’s just Act 1.
Act 2 begins with Olivia being, well, dead. ‘How?’ I hear you ask. Good question, no idea. How Olivia died wasn’t covered during the performance, which seems like a pretty pivotal piece of information.
Stuck in a mid-way afterlife, manned by an old aunty (Hall), Olivia is given the opportunity to come back to the real world, to watch her son discover himself, without being seen or heard, to both disastrous and heart warming consequences.
The musical numbers overall were beautiful, however the vast majority sounded like they weren’t quite finished. Each song came to an apparent end shortly after a crescendo, without enough thought put into closing off the song in a pleasing manner. Belting out hit after hit, with Bad Day Box being a crowd favourite, and Wild About You tugging at the heartstrings impressively, the potential for the music is huge, especially with this all-star cast in charge of gifting each song to the audience, but work is still undoubtedly needed to bring the score up to a level ready for stage. There were also a number of issues with the microphones, often not audibly on for the first few words of a sentence.
McCormack’s West End debut was undoubtedly a personal success, and he portrayed Michael well as an actor, however, performing with such a strong vocal line-up, his voice sometimes got lost in group numbers. Tucker and Tompsett, both known for roles requiring huge vocal gravitas, didn’t disappoint, and Muscato’s second act entrance also provided the audience with a couple of impressive ballads. Allen-Martin’s comic timing, alongside a beautiful voice, makes her character one of the most convincing – her casting was inspired. And Todrick Hall was, well, is he ever anything other than perfection?
There are plenty of parts of this performance that made sense – the casting, the voices, the idea behind the story, and the humour. But there are also parts that didn’t – the gaps in the storyline, songs ending in a way that seemed premature, Michael’s religiousness, and why our leading lady died, to name a few.
The comic timing was fantastic throughout, and the vocals were a hit. The storyline certainly needs work to fill the gaps, but overall, with a few tweaks, this could wow West End crowds in the future.
Reviewed by Luisa Gottardo
