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Sweeter and frothier than pink prosecco, Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s new musical is squarely aimed at the girls, gays and theys. If that phrase sets your teeth on edge for any reason, this show definitely won’t be your (appropriately bedazzled) bag. It’s this writing duo’s long-awaited follow-up to their 2017 Fringe-to-West End breakout show Six, a punchy pop concert hosted by Henry VIII’s mistreated wives. Here, Marlowe and Moss shrug off the cloak of historical respectability to focus on two millennial friends having a very tuneful moan about their woeful love lives.
Jo Foster brings a wonderfully voiced flexibility and vulnerability to the role of Oliver, who’s left bruised by a queer dating scene that won’t quite make room for them. And Leesa Tulley imparts strident-but-sweet vocals and relatable wit to their bestie Nancy, who’s still obsessed with her boring ex.
With no dates on the scene, the pair are stuck bingeing crap telly, ordering pizza deliveries, and chewing over where it all went wrong. Fans of Six will find some of the same crass, catchy songwriting energy on offer here, as the pair advertise their dating potential with cheeky lines like “We are well read/ Good at giving... advice”. There are so many wittily staged highlights: like a Noughties nu-metal tirade against unrealistic standards in Friends, with a chorus wearing Ross and Rachel wigs, or Foster’s lightning-quick rundown of their online dating woes in “Eight Dates”.
Marlow and Moss make no attempt to hide the fact that this theatrical pity party is semi-autobiographical (hilariously, all the show’s pseudonyms are pickpocketed from their favourite musical Oliver!). So amongst the tirades against Tinder, there’s a lot of chat about the pressures of writing a “Big Fancy Musical”. But although the show does indeed advertise itself as big and fancy, it feels more like an intimate queer cabaret night with panto production values. There’s very little plot and few characters beyond its central duo who find company, Beauty and the Beast style, in their flat’s chorus of singing furniture; dragged-up performers embody a bedazzled monstera plant, a masochistic footstool, and a pair of living curtains who swish glamorously in long pleated gowns.
Where Six’s 80-minute runtime meant it could get away without having much of a story, this two-and-a-half-hour show definitely sags – its endless callbacks and in-jokes are no substitute for a satisfying storyline. Sometimes, its makers sassily rebel against the pressures they’re under to write a classic musical. The closing number to act one is traditionally where composers put their most epic, narratively ambitious numbers: think “One Day More” in Les Miserables or “Defying Gravity” in Wicked. Here, we get... “There’s a Bee”, a novelty number where Nancy and Oliver extravagantly freak out because an insect got in their living room. It’s all very camp and self-aware, even if being aware of your plot’s flaws isn’t as satisfying for an audience as actually fixing them.
Still, a welcome bit of substance arrives in the second act. Yep, disastrous dates are hilarious. But the truths underlying them aren’t – there’s something deeply ugly about the way that people treat each other on their ruthless search for love and sex, however much you dress those realities up in cute outfits and garnish them with cocktail umbrellas. Foster’s showstopping number “Disco Ball” exposes why finding a partner feels impossible when they’re struggling with their gender identity and an agonising lifetime of institutionalised homophobia. It’s a powerful shot of reality that spills over the edges of this plastic champagne flute of a show, reminding us that Marlow and Moss are talents to be reckoned with, when they find a story that’s really worth telling.
‘Why Am I So Single?’ is at the Garrick Theatre, booking until February 2025
