Review: THE GUY WHO DIDN’T LIKE MUSICALS, Apollo Theatre
The Starkid cult favourite comes to London for the first time
It’s clear before the curtain rises – before you’ve even set foot in the theatre – that The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals is about more than the sum of its parts. Several audience members are in costume, and need to be reminded via the pre-show voiceover not to sing along, even if they know every line.
This is testament to the cult fandom that has emerged over the last decade around Starkid, the University of Michigan-founded production company whose YouTube musical parodies in the early 2010s became calling cards for a certain kind of chronically online theatre kid. A kind of horror-infused precursor to Schmigadoon!, The Guy Who… was among the company’s earliest original works, and concerns Paul (Jon Matteson), a straitlaced office drone who becomes trapped in his personal hell – living in a musical.
We all enjoy a grassroots musical theatre success story, so it feels like an uncomfortable truth to acknowledge that the show itself simply isn’t very good. Too little time is spent with Paul as he adjusts to his new, surreal reality, and too much on writers Nick and Matt Lang constantly upping the ante on sheer weirdness.
It turns out that everyone in Paul’s town is singing and dancing because they have been infected as the result of an alien attack, which is less of a plot development and more of an excuse for a lot of onstage gore and zombified choreography. Some attempt to give emotional depth the supporting characters – a love triangle here, an estranged daughter there – isn’t enough to ground the absurdity of the premise in reality.
Some of these issues are alleviated by the cast, most of whom are reprising their original roles from the show’s first outing in 2018. Paul is an intentionally bland figure – one of the show’s smartest songs, ‘What Do You Want, Paul?’ lampoons him for not having ambition worthy of an ‘I Want’ song – but Matteson’s everyman charm and sceptical facial expressions are worth the price of admission.
Elsewhere, his romance with fellow cynic Emma (Lauren Lopez, who also directs) is sweetly done, and the rom-com miscommunications feel charming rather than annoying. There’s also a scene-stealing turn from newcomer Iván González Fernández as a mad professor-slash-doomsday survivalist who’s in a passionate relationship with his Alexa, and turns out to have musical theatre ambitions of his own, performing the very meta ‘Showstopping Number’.
This new production, which began life last year in Los Angeles, represents a gear change for Starkid. What began life as a low-budget YouTube stream now has the resources of a West End theatre, and the set, sound and lighting teams have taken full advantage in staging multiple chase scenes, a helicopter ride and an explosion. It’s pleasing to see, but it does also run the risk of some of the group’s wittier, subtler lyrics – including in songs like ‘America is Great Again’ critiquing US imperialism – being lost amid the noise.
Much like the encroaching singing zombies, the silliness of Starkid is something that creeps up on you, and it’s up to you whether to let it take you over. You may not come away a fully fledged, merch-wearing fan, but there is something to be said for the show’s pluck and originality.
The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals plays at The Apollo Theatre until 30 May
Photo credit: Danny Kaan
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