Everything I had heard and read about this show was “Monty Python meets Mel Brooks with a dash of Hamilton.” I, as a huge fan of Monty Python and Mel Brooks, came into this show figuring I would either love it or loath it. Personally, I hope that Monty Python and Mel Brooks would be proud to have their names linked to this musical.
I appreciate the small cast, only five actors are in this production (not including the understudies) and they work as a number of different characters as well as changing the sets throughout. A very notable moment of these seamless transitions was the ending number of the first act (“Just For Tonight”) which blended a high intensity, dance infused pub crawl with the solemn duties tasked to the crew of the submarine carrying a corpse.
The cast consists of David Cumming (playing Charles Cholmondeley and others), Claire-Marie Hall (playing Jean Leslie and others), Natasha Hodgson (playing Ewen Montagu and others), Jak Malone (playing Hester Leggatt and others), and Zoë Roberts (playing Johnny Bevan and others).
This is a show where the gender of the cast played no importance towards the gender of the characters they portrayed. Jak Malone blew me away with his singing ability and his rendition of “Dear Bill” brought me to tears. Both Malone and Natasha Hodgson played gender swapped characters for their main roles and they both nailed it. Natasha was a convincing man, even dropping her voice to an impressively low tone quite frequently. Malone, on the other hand, nailed the daintiness expected from a woman of that time with both grace and dignity.
In fact, this was Jak Malone’s Broadway debut. I can describe his performance in one word: Phenomenal. I hope to see a lot more Malone in the future.
The entire show was very well put together. The scene transitions and movements were very simple, allowing each of the actors to shine, while keeping the show flowing in both times of light hearted laughter and when dealing with the harsh realities of life. I can see why this show keeps getting extended and why it excelled in London’s West End. All in all, the show really was “Monty Python meets Mel Brooks with a dash of Hamilton” and I mean it that in the very best of ways.
Bravo! Well done. The standing ovation at the end of this show was absolutely earned.