SCISSORHANDZ: A Musical Reinvented West End Reviews

art parody, part straight up retelling, what makes Scissorhandz fall apart story-wise is its lack of identity. Unlike the similar screen to stage musical parody Titanique that treats the James Cameron film like a drunken watch party with friends thro...

art parody, part straight up retelling, what makes Scissorhandz fall apart story-wise is its lack of identity. Unlike the similar screen to stage musical parody Titanique that treats the James Cameron film like a drunken watch party with friends throughout its run time, Bredeweg's book wants its audience to laugh at campy caricatures and self-referential jokes one minute and treat scenes with utmost seriousness the next. This isn't to say they work on their own, but together it feels disconnected.

As with all jukebox musicals, some lines simply distract while others hit home, such as Kim singing “you hold me without touch” from Gravity by Sara Bareilles. Music director and orchestrator Gregory Nabours’ macabre choral arrangement of Aeros...

As with all jukebox musicals, some lines simply distract while others hit home, such as Kim singing “you hold me without touch” from Gravity by Sara Bareilles. Music director and orchestrator Gregory Nabours’ macabre choral arrangement of Aerosmith’s Dream On manages to strike a similar tone to Danny Elfman’s film score. But the jumble of songs, played by a tight band, never quite finds a unified sound and the relationships between characters don’t all convince. It’s a fun and heartfelt show yet retains the air of a work-in-progress, as unfinished as a child with scissors for hands.

The pitfall with Scissorhandz is it doesn’t seem to have completely worked out what it wants to be just yet. Full of ideas, little nuggets are dropped but then never followed up so it becomes a mish-mash of ideas that aren’t fully utilised. Rathe...

The pitfall with Scissorhandz is it doesn’t seem to have completely worked out what it wants to be just yet. Full of ideas, little nuggets are dropped but then never followed up so it becomes a mish-mash of ideas that aren’t fully utilised. Rather ironically, like its main character, the show feels unfinished. That isn’t to detract from the potential this show has as there really is no shortage of that, but to me it felt like it had been going through rewrites up until the last minute, whether that is true or not, and as such is not currently the best version of itself.