Now That’s What I call a Musical tells the story of Gemma and April, two childhood best friends who reunite at a school reunion. When the two meet it’s evident that they have a lot of catching up to do! This comedy musical is jam packed with lots of iconic eighties chart toppers such as You Spin Me Round, Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Mickey. This brand new production first hit the stage in 2024, and is currently touring the UK.
The musical portrayed a rather simple narrative, which was easy to follow and understand. The story hopped back and forth between the eighties with the characters in their teens, transitioning to the characters later on in their adulthood at their 2009 reunion. The show felt very slow in the first act especially, and we felt the plot could’ve been expanded on with more development of minor characters or a more advanced subplot. We did enjoy watching the story jump back and forth between the eras, however this wasn’t enough to keep us engaged the entire show. The show featured plenty of comedy throughout, which had the audience in stitches of laughter. We can’t say we were laughing as much, but appreciate the comedy is targeted more towards an older age demographic.
The casting choices in this show were perfect. Given the nature of the show having younger and older versions of the same character, the cast were very much alike adding to the authenticity of the characters. The cast consisted of nineteen talented performers who all gave an incredible performance, they all delivered excellently in all singing, dancing and acting. We loved watching the chemistry between Gemma and April, both older and younger actors delivered an authentic portrayal of friendship. Chris, who played Gemma’s husband Tim, also delivered an excellent ‘love to hate’ character on stage.
This jukebox musical featured hits from the iconic ‘Now That’s What I call Music” albums from the eighties. The songs were largely the same as the originals, with some minor amendments to tempo and pitch. Whilst we loved all the music, the songs often felt shoehorned into the story, adding no additional storytelling or development of the plot. We felt some of these songs could’ve had more lyric alterations to advance the plot further. A lot of songs were also used as karaoke tracks, or to transition between scenes. We particularly loved Sam Bailey’s rendition of “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves”, her vocals were outstanding.
Now That’s What I call a Musical excelled in dance, directed by Craig Revel Horwood. The dancing was a visual spectacle, adding value to the performance. Each dance number felt well choreographed and blocked well to fill the large Edinburgh Playhouse stage. The costumes were dazzling and well designed, adding to the upbeat charm of this performance. We particularly loved the TV costumes for the ‘Video Killed the Radio star’ scene, even if this scene felt out of place for the show! All costumes were well fitting for the time period, and added to the show.
The set design was a highlight to this performance. The set consisted of one large static set piece, which evolved cleverly to create multiple smaller scenes with additional smaller set pieces. The set was well built, fitting to the time era and adapted well to set each scene perfectly. The stage was well lit with use of both external lighting and lighting fixtures on the primary set, and also helped set the ambiance to each scene brilliantly.
Whilst we enjoyed our afternoon at Now That’s What I Call A Musical, it wouldn’t be a show we would be rushing back to see again. We appreciate we likely aren’t the target audience for this show, and could definitely imagine both our Mum’s enjoying this show a lot more than us!
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