I didn’t expect to, but I loved every minute of this show. It is a loving parody of so many different musical styles. Though the characters were made up on the spot, I believed every one of them. Great voices, brilliant performances.
In Showstopper!, the improvised musical, the show is different every night. The audience is invited to call out suggested themes for the story – and then offer various musical genres for the songs.
I might have suspected that the theme chosen was called out by a plant – if the audience (who are asked to vote with the loudest cheer) hadn’t yelled most enthusiastically for the idea called out by my friend Amanda, sitting next to me.
Thinking “university” might be too obvious for Cambridge, Amanda offered The Cows on the Common a frequent sight for her as she cycles through Cambridge. The title, contributed by another person in the audience was The Sound of Moo-sic.
We climbed every mountain, and the stage was definitely alive. The cast of five sang a Sondheim that was to die for – and a Disney (complete with birdsong) that was a saccharin joy – not just the singing but the gestures too.
You have to know a genre really well to have that much fun with it.
Having given us a version of The Heathers Musical, we then got Bake Off The Musical: “Have you seen a sausage roll that could fill a hole in your soul.”
All in splendid voice, the cast included Adam Meggido -who taught acting at Lamda (The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) for over a decade.
He played Farmer Rankin, a man who had years earlier denied himself true love.
Andrew Pugsley was the rival farmer Fierce Pete, a man not to be reckoned with. Each had two cows on the common – and were at loggerheads.
Ruth Bratt played Fierce Pete’s wife (really in love with Rankin of course) with an accent reminiscent of Clarrie in The Archers, and a superb voice.
The two young women who discover at the end they are sisters (no worry about spoilers here because the show will not be repeated) were played by Miracle Chance and Susan Harrison. (Harrison does a lovely 1940s cut glass diction when she isn’t playing a farmer’s daughter).
Both of them switched between playing the cows (all that animal portrayal at drama school wasn’t wasted) and playing two young women who escape from the country and find new lives in the city but ultimately return home to unite their shared families.
All of them are superb – as are the musicians (for this show keyboard and percussion) who just have to go with the flow. An uplifting night at the theatre. It was hilarious – a true delight.
Showstopper! Is at Cambridge Arts Theatre until Saturday, September 21, then touring. It is also playing at The Cambridge Theatre in London’s West End on Monday nights.
