{"id":11680,"date":"2021-05-27T16:29:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T16:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=11680"},"modified":"2021-05-27T16:29:30","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T16:29:30","slug":"you-are-here-at-southwark-playhouse-a-pleasant-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2021\/05\/27\/you-are-here-at-southwark-playhouse-a-pleasant-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"You Are Here at Southwark Playhouse: A Pleasant Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the new musical You Are Here, playing at the Southwark Playhouse until June 12. I watched via livestream but unforch I think only in person tickets remain for the rest of the run, even though no one under 40 gets second doses till August.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n All I knew going in about Southwark Playhouse’s new musical ‘You Are Here’ was that it was ‘roughly about the moon landing’, according to my husband. I assumed that meant it was going to feature a sparkly Neil Armstrong doing jazz hands with comic relief Buzz Aldrin as they sang “I’m walking on the moooooon, yeah yeah, look at us leap so hiiigh, yeah yeah” or something like that (there is a reason I do not write musicals). So, it’s not like that uh-TALL, as you Brits would say. ‘You Are Here’ is the super personal and heartfelt journey of one nice little old lady who is inspired by the moon landing to bring a little joy into her humdrum life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Starring Wendi Peters (from Coronation Street which I still haven’t seen an episode of; will they revoke my citizenship) as a woman who is onstage singing literally for an hour and a half without stopping and possibly without ever having water, which I just cannot fathom, this show was a pleasant surprise, as it says on the tin\/title. When her Diana sees muhfucking men<\/em> walking on the gd moon<\/em>, she’s like a) that’s my moon and b) I should do something brave and exciting and something<\/em> with my life instead of simply cooking and cleaning for my husband and playing canasta once a week with that nosy gossip next door (I’m paraphrasing but that’s the gist. Do gentiles play canasta?) So, she’s inspired by this momentous event, naturally, inspired to…walk out her door…and keep walking. She takes the subway (!) at night (!) alone (!) into the big city (!) (Chicago) and gets a motel room (!) all without a plan or a note left for Gerard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And she does it all with an American accent that didn’t make me squirm! Although, as per uzh, husbo and I both shouted IT’S AMERICAN ACCENT TIIIME! we will miss being able to shout that once we return to in-person theatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With music by Neil Bartram, the score has some lovely moments and shows promise, although I had issues with a few bits. The first few songs struck me as a little bit not passing the ‘does this need to be sung\/is this improved by being a song’ musical theatre test, although both improved within themselves as they progressed. The second song’s improvement was drastic: it starts with pedestrian (no pun intended) lyrics like “I’m walking to the station” “I’m looking for a token” but then, once it makes some incred The King & I references, it turns around and has a great second half. Once the show gets moving and hits its groove though, the music strengthens, or maybe the show just started growing on me more. Everything fit well and I didn’t even think about the music – in the good way of it melding into the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s a lot of heartfelt emotion infused throughout, as well as great humor (we laughed out loud at the Bonanza line, even though we are not old). I cracked up at the lyric that drew out saying Jackie O’s entire name with all her last names so it could rhyme with glasses. Brian Hill’s book had really hilarious parts too, like when Diana said “I’m having my bags sent round”, which made us giggle. But the book and the show’s magic is the twist reveal of Diana’s home life, a real dramatic shock that brought an already lovely show to a higher level of poignancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this exploration of Diana’s relationships – with her husband, her moon, her life in general – I loved the friendship that Diana formed with the maid Ruby, or as I called it, “Pursie and Hoover, being best friends” (sing that like Kimmy Schmidt would). Having Diana find someone to help her navigate this adventure brought a lot of heart and love into a story that was already all heart. (“I’M ALL HEART MUHFUCKA!” I know I have cursed more than I should for a play this Safe For Families but I couldn’t not just quote that line; I walked right into that.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are some ridiculous parts, like when this lady gets high with a homeless 20 year-old (ridiculous! in a fun way), although their relationship was often glorious to watch too. Or how poor Evan Hansen’s mom was sitting smack dab in the middle back of the stage for like, the entire second half (ridiculous in a bad oversight way). Just snitting. Not even snittin next to Borpo. And Ruby’s cooking song could have been cut; it was very See Spot Run in its lyrics and my attention dropped at that point. Their friendship was so lovely to watch; literally any other sort of song or use of that time to show them together would have been stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But these little dips didn’t really affect the overall quality too much. Diana’s song\/s about her moon (Diana is<\/em> the goddess of the moon after all, or at least related in a triad, mythology is all very magoo), her song in the mirror about being old, all had high levels of artistry and emotion (except that latter one is kind of rude to have this actress sing?? like how very dare you). And that reveal. I pulled a full-on Chris Pratt as Andy Dwyer in that ‘wowwww’ gif face, I tell you. This was a lovely gem of a truly original show and I couldn’t have appreciated it more even if it had tap-dancing astronauts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the new musical You Are Here, playing at the Southwark Playhouse until June 12. I watched via livestream but unforch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-theatre"],"yoast_head":"\n