SUGAR RUSH
I can by no means resist scribbling down rhymes in new musicals, whether or not in a spirit appalled or admiring. Take a bow Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary – writers of this excessive carbohydrate tribute to Bake Off’s eleven years on two networks, for my biro sped throughout the web page within the darkness. I appear to have scrawled the phrases “Dont be so despondent, put extra water in your fondant’ and I believe it was admiration that point.
It definitely was within the signature quantity from Grace Mouat’s Izzy, the posh-mean-girl character who is barely doing it to get on telly – “I’ll get on Free Ladies, and design my very own linen, and Beyoncé might be my finest pal”, an excellent summing-up of Technology Z dim-bition. I additionally appear to have scrawled “dip your little finger in my raclette”, which falls to Haydn Gwynne because the masterful she-judge.
The thought, a pleasant one, is to think about the musical as a season that was by no means broadcast. There’s a cookie-cutter predictable solid of characters who we’re beneath orders to think about lovable. The presenters (Zoe Birkett and Scott Paige) do an excellent job of being each bit as naff with their annoying questions as the true ones, whereas the lofty judges (who’re NOT referred to as Pru Leith and Paul Hollywood, although what with the bike, her hairdo and the I’m-a-top-businesswoman quantity snarl you would possibly suspect it.
Among the many contenders there’s posh dangerous Izzy (don’t fear, she recants, after doing a horrible factor with a creme-brulée gun to the humble heroine Gemma, a carer from Blackpool who wants to search out confidence) . There’s an plane engineer with a style for precision, a widowed Dad with a lovable child, and Hassan the Syrian refugee, who discusses how British they each are with Francesca the Italian immigrant. There’s earthy Babs – essential, Claire Moore turning the warmth as much as the sting of insupportable – and hippie vegan Dezza, who will get thrown in and out one of many few crisper edges of the plot retains crashing again in. All of the contestants have a quick back-story – neatly dealt with – and it’s no spoiler to disclose that the conclusion to every part is that it’s not likely a contest (or a TV moneyspinner). It’s a JOURNEY, and it’s all about being individuals collectively, er in an area, like a theatre.
In order that’s bought the soggy backside of it over with, and no one goes to show up considering it’s going to be Joe Gorton, in any case. There’s quite a lot of good to steadiness it out: among the songs, notably “I’ll by no means be me with out you” , will turn out to be the kind of requirements which in future a long time Elaine Paige will play on Sunday afternoon R2, and I imply that as reward. “Babs’ Lament” over the toothsome however unattainable he-judge can also survive, and Haydn Gwynne as choose Pam truly does a full cartwheel at one level, a kind of breathtaking proofs that actors should not like the remainder of us in our mid-sixties.
But it surely’s the massive showstopper within the first half which is sort of definitely worth the ticket worth alone: “Slap it like that” led by John Owen-Jones within the Paul-Hollywood position includes mass percussive strudel-dough choreography. Georgina Lamb – who retains this huge solid shifting quick and neatly on a regular basis – has needed to liaise with Alice Energy the “Set, Costume and Cake designer” to create a dough which may face up to the intense slapping. I need to honour them for that. Particularly in the event that they er – knead – to make a brand new lot twice on matinée days.
Sure, it was jolly. Charlotte Wakefield has a very lovely voice, too, and if the storylines are crushed thinner than the airiest Filo pastry, who cares? I consulted theatrecat’s mice and the fourth one sidled in, burping, sugary frosting spherical its whiskers.
bakeoffthemusical.com to 13 Might
