It doesn't happen very often but, once in a while, a show comes along that is so excruciatingly bad that those who had the misfortune to witness it will likely never be able to scrub it from memory. Enter Sea Witch.
What a calamity this ‘worldwide premiere', staged in the illustrious surroundings of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, proved to be. It is rare but there was not one redeeming quality in this puffed-up, money-grabbing enterprise.
Based on Sarah Henning's 2018 young adult fantasy novel of the same name, Sea Witch is the origin story of Ursula. Here, she begins her journey as a teenage girl named Evie (played by Natalie Paris), who ultimately transforms into a witch to win the heart of a prince.
Or, at least I think that's what was happening. This presentation of Evie's story was threadbare, muddled and, objectively, laughable. Yes, for much of the second act, the audience was outwardly and loudly guffawing at the ridiculousness of both the dialogue and stage direction.
Sea Witch is a concert production that will not have come cheap for co-creators and producers Kristopher Russell and Michael David Glover, the latter of whom is responsible for the staccato and hideously awkward book scenes, lacking in depth, humour and any sort of self-awareness.
Headline turn Michelle Visage (Tante Hansa) appeared on stage before lights down, urging the audience to “go easy” and immediately dampening expectations with talk of short rehearsal periods.
That ought to have been the red flag to send the sold-out audience streaming for the exits and the night only went downhill from there, careering from one monotone power-ballad-by-numbers to another.
Make no mistake, this was a stacked cast, stuffed full of some of musical theatre's top talents - and Michelle Visage. Paris and Amy Di Bartolemo did their best to inject some life into composer Segun Fawole's desperately limp score, alongside West End fan favourite Mazz Murray.
There were extraordinary moments where Sea Witch seemed to ape other, established musicals. Wicked featured heavily, with Evie at one point hunched over a book resembling the Grimmerie and the audience on the edge of their seats as they awaited “eleka nahmen nahmen, ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen”. Sadly, it never came.
There were also a handful of numbers that struck more than a passing resemblance of Dear Evan Hansen's You Will Be Found. For a show quite so weak in terms of its score, reminding the audience of much-loved numbers from other musicals seems somewhat ill-judged.
But Fawole's lyrics were so bland and his melodies so bereft of life, one was put in mind of the Simpsons meme of a child pleading “stop, stop, he's already dead!”. Alas - despite the best efforts of Paris, Di Bartolomeo, et al - there was no saving this corpse of a score.
Jay McGuinness (Iker) and Djavan Van De Fliert (Nik) both struggle to make any sort of impact on the book or score, both playing princes that could have been sketched out and developed by a six-year-old child, while Natalie Kassanga (Malvina) is vocally impressive but hamstrung by her one-note mean girl character, essentially a catty love rival to Evie.
Nobody involved in this shambles ought to escape unscathed. Dean Lee's choreography was at best distracting and pulled focus, at worst cliched and cringeworthy, which, in fairness, was in keeping with the rest of the piece. The lighting design was terribly misjudged, blinding and never found any sort of consistency.
The costumes were a team effort in which, according to the programme, three professionals contributed towards. Perhaps this was the most visual example of muddled thinking because the final products were unimaginative, dated and - in the case of Murray's bizarre hooded appendage - physically restrictive.
The vast failings of Sea Witch ought to serve as a watershed moment, prompting a wider debate about large-scale concerts being used to promote underdeveloped and, often, lacklustre works. New musical theatre should be nurtured and supported but Sea Witch is the latest (and possibly worst) in a long line of flops that have booked star names in big houses to sell extortionately-priced tickets.
The whole sorry event, on the night, reeked of an overproduced, expensive vanity project. It is not uncommon for shows to open up workshop or development performances to a paying audience, but in the cases of Bliss, Mona Loser and 13 Going On 30, to name just a few, they have been pitched and priced accordingly.
Let us hope that Sea Witch remains tethered to the bottom of the ocean and never again inflicts itself on paying audiences.
Review: Tom Ambrose Photos: Danny Kaan