REVIEW: I Sing!, Drayton Arms ✭✭✭✭

I Sing!

4 stars

The Drayton Arms

14 July 2015

I have to admit that my heart filled ever so slightly with dread when I read the synopsis for I Sing!, the musical currently playing at the Drayton Arms. ‘A musical about coming of age in New York City… that centres around five people learning about who they are, love, loss, sex and friendship.’ I had instant visions of Friends: The Musical, with a chirpy score packed with songs about what great mates they all are.

Mercifully, I Sing! Goes far deeper than that, providing a brilliant and absorbing evening. Eli Bolin’s score is soaring and emotional, ably supported by Sam Forman’s catchy and memorable lyrics.

The play initially centres on Nicky (Steffan Lloyd-Evans) and Heidi (Malindi Freeman) - a seemingly perfect couple whose relationship slowly disintegrates. What follows is more of a love pentagon than a love triangle as the five characters fall in and out of love with each other and wrestle with their true feelings.

Lloyd-Evans and Freeman are both exceptionally strong performers and their scenes on stage together are amongst the best of the show. The dashing Lloyd-Evans is compelling and charming as Nicky and boasts a total powerhouse of a voice, with an impressive upper range. He gets some wonderful ballads to play with (how nice that a man gets to sing the sad number about being alone for once!) and is entirely believable as a man torn between two women.

Malindi Freeman is probably the least experienced of the cast but puts in one of the strongest showings. Her renditions of Daddy’s Girl (cleverly placed once in each half, with very different meanings) brought a tear to the eye and she showed real emotional sensitivity and depth of performance. Eleanor Sanders’ Pepper is strikingly sultry and sexy when required - her voice bizarrely reminded me of the puppet Lucy from Avenue Q during some numbers! However, she also displays a real vulnerability that takes the character beyond a Sex in the City style caricature. Sanders possesses a soulful and powerful voice, which she uses to good effect in the brilliant second half tune Starting Over.

The remaining two characters were a bit less impactful, despite a pair of spirited performances. Daniel Mack Shand’s strange and neurotic Alan is lumbered with a shocker of a solo song in What Alan Likes (a rare weak spot in the score), although he looks more comfortable in the second half when his character has some more meaningful scenes. Louis Westwood’s sexually confused Charlie has a wonderful voice but is either written or played (difficult to tell which) a touch too flamboyantly, especially when compared to the other more nuanced performances. The play was written over twenty years ago and Charlie felt a bit like one of the stereotypically camp and fabulous gay characters that would often turn up in 1990s sitcoms; great fun but a tad one-dimensional at times.

Director Glenn Gaunt makes the most of the minimalist staging, especially with a deliciously rude start to the second half (two simultaneous sex scenes with accompanying harmonies - not one to see with your parents!). The sound quality, often a snag at pub theatre productions, was fantastic, with the (non-microphoned) cast did brilliantly to project their voice and maintain their diction. Daniel Jarvis was a maestro on the piano, providing strong accompaniment for a totally sung-through score.

The story of the London I Sing! revival is a sweet one – producer Jason Rodger loved the original soundtrack and contacted the show’s writers, asking them whether they’d consider a London production. The writers asked Jason if he wanted to give it a go and the result is currently on display in a pub in South Kensington. The original creators can be proud; I Sing! is a wonderful show with a wonderful cast and deserves to find a home for longer than the scheduled week.

I Sing! runs at the Drayton Arms until July 21, 2015