(seen at the afternoon preview performance on 14th April 2024)
In recent times, the trend has been for Broadway to produce big, vacuous musical theatre adaptations of hit movies. Mainland Europe adapts its own films or gives the West End inexplicable adaptations of classics Broadway doesn’t want.
The British go for small-scale shows in the hope of building a cult following among the 15 to 25 age group in particular. This is the latest in a long line. Various iterations and a sell-out season at the Kiln Theatre, Kilburn earlier in 2024 have built an appreciative audience for this transfer.
Soutra Gilmour’s versatile luggage skyscraper stack set is a smash hit in itself. Lighting designer Jack Knowles gets it glowing inventively and adds effects taking us from London to the dazzle of NYC in a second. With Tim Jackson’s skill moving our two cake-toting heroes around this suitcase city, we have a sound base from which to build a relationship.
That’s more than can be said for New Yorker Robin (Dujonna Gift) and tentative Londoner Dougal (Sam Tutty).
Gift’s edgy irritation and Tutty’s laid-back attitude drive the show as much as Jim Barn and Kit Buchan’s slightly skinny score and book.
The title is something of a misnomer. Nobody really carries anything very far, and events are oddly telescoped into a timeframe which suggests the “New York minute” is an elastic commodity.
Still, this duo pack in plenty. Sorting out every interpersonal relationship they ever had or probably ever will. Spending a lot of cash in high-end places having started from broke. And never quite seeing the sights of the city on the Hudson.
They work best when together in harmony. A rather clever anti-Christmas number “Under The Mistletoe” counterbalance a less sure “American Express” first act closer.
Rather unfortunately, neither character is particularly deeply drawn. Partly a generational thing – this is the generation who cannot afford anything at all and thus have no aspiration as they know well there is no point.
For a musical, it is a drawback as we need to hear internal monologue in song. If there is little to feel, we cannot do so, and that is the case with several numbers. “He Doesn’t Exist” should be cruel, yet lacks edge. Likewise, without pathos, “Dad” can’t be as meaningful as a Sondheim number would be.
On the plus side, there are some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, and for the most part we are given a tale in which to invest a little hopeful anticipation. Add superior staging and performances, and it is another win for the small-yet-perfectly-formed UK theatre brigade.
