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Parenthood
★★★½

The Space

Parenthood

Parenthood

The Space

Reviewed – 23rd July 2019

★★★½

 

“just about every one of the songs was catchy, cleverly composed and brilliantly witty”

 

Nothing makes you feel more inadequate than parenthood. You have a successful day, go to bed feeling good about yourself and wake up to a child telling you that they’ve just stuck a marble in their ear. So going to see a musical revue all about parenthood, would either leave me in hysterical laughter at other people’s misfortunes, or bring back that nervous twitch.

This brand new original show has music, text and lyrics all written by Kent based couple Emily and Pete Moody, Emily also directs. The show comprises of about twenty five scenes delivered in either sketch form or musical number. The subject matter starts with pregnancy, moves rapidly to delivery and runs through notable landmarks up to when the children leave home for university.

The small stage at The Space was decorated with about a dozen large building block cubes, coloured sheets and a cot. The sheets were imaginatively used and the cubes provided good height when seating was required. Sound was well timed and all musical numbers were delivered to a backing track. Costumes were nicely thought out with bright primary colours and occasional bursts into fancy dress.

On this opening night, there were a few technical issues with feedback from a speaker and a few of the actors microphones seemed to stop working. This meant that they lost projection and the sound levels had balancing issues, I hope these are easily resolved. Scene changes I found to be a little clunky, with the stage going to sometimes prolonged blackout whilst blocks were moved and cast members changed, I feel it would be worth investigating if this could be done another way to add a bit more continuity to the piece.

A lot of this play is very funny and yet interestingly, I found that some of the spoken sketches fell a little flat, although the scene with parents reading a school report whilst a teacher translated what he really meant, was utterly hilarious. However, this show really comes alive with the musical numbers. Each of the nine strong ensemble had an excellent voice and just about every one of the songs was catchy, cleverly composed and brilliantly witty. Personal highlights were the school playground number, well observed, insightful and a lovely touch from the lone dad. An amusing song from a sleep deprived mother, a high-kicking pair of grandparents and a beautifully poignant song from a mum expressing her thoughts to her late mother, a lovely change of pace and delivered incredibly naturally.

I feel that Fluffy Top Productions are on to something here, it needs a bit of tightening up and a little re-writing, but it went down very well with the audience and has a lot of highlights.

I finally feel that a big shout-out needs to go out to all the cast for putting such energy into their performances on a quite frankly, absurdly hot summer evening.

 

Reviewed by Chris White

 


Parenthood

The Space until 27th July

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
The South Afreakins | ★★★★★ | February 2019
FFS! Feminist Fable Series | ★★★★ | March 2019
The Conductor | ★★★★ | March 2019
We Know Now Snowmen Exist | ★★★ | March 2019
Post Mortem | ★★★★ | April 2019
The Wasp | ★★★★ | April 2019
Delicacy | ★★★½ | May 2019
Me & My Doll | ★★ | May 2019
Mycorrhiza | ★★★ | May 2019
Holy Land | ★★★ | June 2019

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com

 

Parenthood
★★★

St Paul’s Church Covent Garden

Parenthood

Parenthood

St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden

Reviewed – 3rd May 2019

★★★

 

“Overall the production has potential and has a strong foundation with great music, lyrics and plot”

 

Parenthood is a new musical that takes us on a relatable journey, giving us a snapshot style exploration of mainly the negative parts of being a parent through comedic songs. A cast of nine clearly talented actors/singers switch roles and give us an authentic and frankly funny portrayal of their characters. We see parents finding out they’re pregnant and the reactions of doubt to gloating that inevitably follow through songs such as ‘We’ll be fine’ and ‘Strong swimmers’.

Moving swiftly onto ‘Christmas With the Kids’ and ‘Put on a Show’ which is where the performance peaks for me, it shows us the all too real primary school Nativity, with the kid that tries too hard, the shy kid and the one who can’t really remember their lines but likes being on stage. The lyrics really helped in portraying this nostalgic look back at growing up, and this felt to me one of the best parts of the production. You can really feel that the words and book have been through a lot of work, they make the songs funny, relevant and catchy. I did find myself humming ‘What’s the Doodle on the Fridge?’ as I travelled home.

Emily and Pete Moody, the creators of the music and lyrics have done a great job at capturing the nuances of parenthood and packaging them in memorable, toe tapping songs. Although because of the high quality of these it means that it is easy to see where the performance is lacking.

The thing that really spoils the performance for me is the lighting design (Maya Kally), it is important to keep in mind the limitations of the space they were performing in but even with this factor in mind it felt clunky and in some places simply wrong. Throughout the performance we would be met with blackouts only for the cast to finish the scene without light and during songs we would have to battle the lights fading in and out to the point where I wondered if there was a fault in the system.

It seems that the production has tried to be too ambitious with their lighting design in such a restricted space, it would have looked far better to tone down lighting changes and work with the resources you have. This can also be said for the choreography, where it feels messy and overcomplex, the best parts are where the cast perform simple moves to accompany the narrative and music. I think it’s important to remember that sometimes less really is more.

Overall the production has potential and has a strong foundation with great music, lyrics and plot. In general though, the production values didn’t reach the same height, perhaps hindered by the church venue; this is a shame as the audience clearly loved the concept of the production.

 

Reviewed by Laurie Wilson

Photography courtesy Fluffy Top Productions

 


Parenthood

St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
The Tempest | ★★★★ | June 2018
The Three Musketeers | ★★★ | August 2018
Anna Karenina | ★★★ | November 2018

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com