Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
The Other Palace, London Until March 26, 2hrs
Has this show lost its tickling stick? The last time I saw it I laughed myself all the way to a five-star review. This time I merely smiled — twice.
The deal is still the same: the audience calls out suggestions for titles, plots and songs ‘in the manner of’ other musicals. The producers swear blind in the programme that there are no plants in the audience, that nothing is rehearsed.
Canvassing audience suggestions is Dylan Emery, the show’s co-inventor (with Adam Meggido). We see him regularly on the phone to producer Cameron Mackintosh – a rather lame routine – who’s in need of a new show.
Showstopper! is the same show it’s always been (the audience call out suggestions for titles, plots & songs ‘in the manner of’ other musicals) but it now seems to lack genuine spontaneity
For musical subjects we shouted out Wormwood Scrubs, Nashville and Hogwarts.
Nashville won out and a musical, called Tennessee Waltz, was born. With a tiny band on stage, what emerged was a lesbian love affair set in the Sixties. Lauren Shearing and Pippa Evans played the gooey couple. But this being Tennessee, they end up marrying a pair of male simpletons.
The cast ropes in all sorts of nominated shows. My Fair Lady produces Rex Harrison rebooted in Elvis mode.
Maybe I got an off night. In 2016 this won Best Entertainment And Family award at the Oliviers. But after a thousand shows, I suspect this clever format has finally gone stale
There’s a duel from Hamilton (surely they do that at every show?) and a ballad from Come From Away – a daft shout-out that, as the show hasn’t yet opened in London.
Occasionally the evening comes close to being a Southern-fried The Book Of Mormon: I enjoyed the love duet, with the words, ‘I hope when they’re hanging us, I’ll be hanging next to you’. But the show lacks the feel of genuine spontaneity.
Maybe I got an off night. In 2016 this won Best Entertainment And Family award at the Oliviers. But after a thousand shows, I suspect this clever format has finally gone stale.
Abigail’s Party
Theatre Royal, Brighton On tour until April 13, 2hrs 20 mins
Rating: 
In a migraine of a multi-coloured maxi-dress, our host Beverly tears up the shag-pile carpet to Demis Roussos: it can only be Abigail’s Party.
Mike Leigh’s excruciating suburban social comedy skewers the Seventies as surely as Beverly has the pineapple and cheese cubes.
The party of the title, in fact, takes place next door; the teenage Abigail’s worried mother Sue has come round for the evening. Whatever the kids are up to, it couldn’t be worse than these booze-soaked grown-ups.
Starring Jodie Prenger as the monstrously manipulative Beverly and Vicky Binns (above with Prenger) as Ange, Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party is far from subtle but very entertaining for it
This production, with Janet Bird’s slanting, orange-and-brown set, was first seen in 2017. Now Jodie Prenger plays the monstrously manipulative Beverly, with real relish in every sashay and stomp, every barbed compliment and scowl at her husband.
There’s nothing subtle about Prenger’s performance – or indeed any of them – but while Sarah Esdaile’s production is sluggish in the first half, Prenger has delicious comic timing. As does Rose Keegan as Sue, while former Corrie actress Vicky Binns as Ange brings the house down with some dodgy go-go dancing.
Holly Williams
Totem
Royal Albert Hall, London Until February 26, 2hrs 10mins
Rating: 
Supposedly inspired by the journey of human evolution, Cirque du Soleil’s Totem (first seen here in 2011) is really a series of circus scenes, with some amphibians, chimps and Neanderthals thrown in for good measure.
Still, no one comes to Cirque du Soleil for the subtle storytelling – which is a good job, because not even with the once avant-garde Robert Lepage writing and directing is there a narrative thread.
The performers are, as ever, simply phenomenally talented. The acrobats delight. The contortionist boggles. The aerialists snatch your breath away.
The performers may be as phenomenal as ever, but Totem suffers heavily from a lazy story and a reliance on simplified stereptypes
The clowns are totally unfunny, but don’t worry, more jaw-dropping trapeze artists are on their way in a minute. Five women juggle bowls between their feet and each other’s heads. While riding giant unicycles.
When not squelching around in the primordial swamp, Totem goes heavy on the tribal drumming, flute and pan pipes as it vaguely gestures towards various cultural rituals. But it’s all madly scattershot, the engagement with the cultures it’s plundering completely shallow.
Totem’s simplified stereotypes range from the tired – posing Italian beach bums, a fiery Spanish toreador – to the really not OK: European rollerskaters got up in a skimpy, rhinestone-studded pastiche of Native American traditional dress. It’s shamelessly lazy – and just incredibly naff.
Holly Williams