Everything has become a musical nowadays.
If it’s not Disney milking yet another remake then it’s Batman’s biggest nemesis switching cackling for chorus – nothing is really safe from jazz hands.
However, the Joker becoming a musical isn’t the most bonkers thing to be transformed into a dramatic sing-song. That’s right, cue Come Dine With Me: The Musical.
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Correct, the Channel 4 late afternoon reality competition show is now being served up on stage as singing, soul searching and silly extravaganza.
What a sad little excuse for a musical? Never! While the concept of a musical Come Dine With Me sounds a bit mad and somewhat of a fever dream, it’s success at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival means it’s landed itself in London for a limited time only.
To be honest, I was expecting a recreation of some of the most iconic moments of the actual series. However, writer Sam Norman managed to create an entire plot merging the tales of production staff, contestants and, at times, the audience – together.
It starts off worryingly immersive. Worrying because it involved audience interaction where the purposefully jittery ‘sound tech’ character is a bit too trigger happy with his mic and also as I feared I was sitting down for more of a panto.
However, concerns about what type of show this would be were quickly put to bed…
The story mainly follows the production team and their pursuit of filming the 1000th episode.
The Karen-esque and ratings hungry producer Mary, played by Daniele Coombe, is pressured with dragging in the ratings and it appears she’ll do anything to make it happen.
(Image: Mark Senior)
Her impressive villainess song captured this well and Coombe’s pipes cemented the almost conniving, but iconic, nature of the character.
With her seemingly inexperienced and dithering male colleagues, they set off for a week filming in a little town – where one of the production team, Teddy (played by Harry Chandler), has an unexpected reunion bound to stir the pot.
Though Teddy is placed as the central character and often the tie between contestants and production, Tom Bowen’s Roy the cameraman helps the story move along and is the unpredictable voice of reason and wit.
So who are the contestants? Well, no Whisk Guy or a Jane with the grace and decorum of a reversing dump truck.
Instead, the fictional Barbara (Kim Ismay), a mature lady obsessed with France, Ernest a flamboyant vegan (Leo Udvarlaky), Duncan (Paul Hazel), the self-proclaimed Pork Pie King and 24-year-old Janey (Sophie Hutchinson) – someone who we would all have been irritated by at school.
(Image: Mark Senior)
It proved to be the perfect concoction of strangers, just like the best episodes of Come Dine With Me, where paranoia, bickering and sass were sitting around a dinner table together.
As the show is only an hour long, they managed to get through each dinner night with speed and song. Each contestant had their own personalised song, which fleshed out their character and the added depth to the rest to see how they react to each lyric.
And while whisk guy didn’t make an appearance on the cast, a cheeky nod to the most iconic moment in actual Come Dine With Me did find its place amongst the madness.
It was cleverly done. The musical could have been long and dreary if it were just a glorified dinner party on a stage – but the stellar cast managed to depict the circus of emotions and antics that Come Dine With Me truly is.
(Image: Mark Senior)
If I can summarise what the 60 minutes of the musical are like, then imagine you’re Gisele from Enchanted, ate an edible and then watched Come Dine With Me re-runs at 2am in the morning.
I never thought Come Dine With Me would give me goose bumps, but here we are! While I might not have shed a tear at this musical, my belly was certainly full of laughter nor was I ever starved of a smile.
I’m wanting to come back for seconds and I hope the show does too.
Come Dine With Me: The Musical is currently showing at Turbine Theatre until September 29.
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
