THEATRE REVIEW: Showstopper! **** (From News Shopper)

THEATRE REVIEW: Showstopper! ****

2:45pm Thursday 19th November 2009

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A BIBLICAL coat of many colours, feline creatures, witches in Oz, a phantom and two warring gangs on the west side of town - all these subjects have been turned into successful musicals.

The apocalypse is missing from the list because it is not really the feel good boy meets girl style situation which will put bums on seats night after night.

But, for one night only, thanks to the cast of Showstopper and their production The Last Carry On, does become a musical.

It's also thanks to the audience because everything in the show is improvised based around suggestions shouted out at the start - hence the subject matter and why most of the action is set at the Thames Barrier or in the Greenwich foot tunnel.

Then it is up to the director with his notes and whiteboard to bring the musical about impending death to life.

The Thames is rising fast as all across the world rivers and seas get higher and higher and humans are at risk of being wiped out forever.

Luckily some brave Big Issue sellers and scientists manage to find their way into the Greenwich foot tunnel - which for the purposes of the musical has several different levels connected by ladders - and save the day.

Being as it is a show about the apocalypse the jokes appear sporadically throughout the action rather than constantly as the plot gets ever more surreal including the onset of doomsday performed in the style of the Carry On films.

But it works because where there aren't jokes there are cleverly improvised comedic songs in the style of Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Gilbert and Sullivan amongst others.

It would have been good to have had more songs in the production because although it is billed as an improvised musical, sometimes it felt more like improvised action with songs.

All things considered though it has everything other musicals have - two acts. an interval with ice cream, happiness and some sadness. But it also has something more.

It has a very talented cast and crew who can act, dance and sing about anything you suggest. Showstopper definitely turns the traditional genre of musical on its head.

For other Showstopper! productions in London, visit showstopperthemusical.com

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