Harry Hill is immersed in the absurdities and excesses of TV, so he was a perfect choice to write a musical based on The X Factor. The result is an unashamedly populist show that’s laced with satirical glee.
When Simon Cowell first appears he’s an ambitious child devising crafty ways of earning money. He soon transforms into the familiar pop svengali, but instead of presiding over Saturday night slickness, Nigel Harman’s preening Cowell gets caught in a torrent of demented weirdness.
The ingredients of this almost operatic oddity include a rapping hunchback, a dead pig, a giant fly that jeopardises an audition, a talking dog (operated and voiced by Simon Lipkin), leprechauns and a producer who applies a Taser to any musical wannabe who gets overexcited.
Clearly director Sean Foley and designer Es Devlin have had a lot of fun with the £6 million budget. And at the heart of the enterprise is Hill’s perennially wacky sensibility, abetted by the songwriting of composer Steve Brown, whose default setting is exuberant pastiche.
The main story is about X Factor hopeful Chenice, who lives under a flyover with her terminally ill grandfather, and her fellow contestant Max, a ukulele-playing plumber. Their romance blooms as everything around them shimmers with glitz and deception. But while Cynthia Erivo oozes infectious charm as Chenice – and has a voice that soars thrillingly – it’s the peripheral details that give the production its bizarre allure.
Advance word suggested that I Can’t Sing! would have critics reaching for the X Factor catchphrase ‘It’s a no from me’. Although it doesn’t merit an emphatic ‘Yes’, this is in fact a cheekily surreal and anarchic piece of entertainment, keenly aware of its own tackiness and triviality.
Until October 25 (0844 412 4655, icantsingthemusical.com)
I Can't Sing! premiere night
