REVIEW: Elf the Musical at Mayflower Theatre

What’s the best way to spread Christmas cheer? I said, What’s the best way to spread Christmas cheer? Well my friend Buddy says that it would be by singing loud for all to hear! ‘Elf the Musical’ has brought it’s Christmas cheer to Southampton and transformed Mayflower Theatre into the magical North Pole and bright lights of New York City. Now many of us probably know ‘Elf’ as one of our favourite Christmas movies, but how many of you were actually aware that since then it was adapted into a musical? Musical adaptations of films are very hit and miss and for the longest time, ‘Elf’ was a big hit starting on Broadway in 2010 before making its way to the West End in 2015. That original musical was adapted by Bob Martin and Thomas Meehan with a whole original score and lyrics by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin. This version of ‘Elf the Musical’ has again been adapted further by Jon Conway and Steve Sheen, and it is very different to that original musical.

I’ve said already how musical adaptations of films are hit and miss and I’m not actually sure where this particular adaptation sits. I personally don’t think this show feels like a musical at all. But I’m also confused whether they’re actually wanting to be referred to as a musical. The company that is running this show is called World’s Biggest Productions, which is one of the leading pantomime companies around - which I guess is why I’m a little bit confused as to why you wouldn’t just call it ‘Elf the Musical - the Pantomime?’. I mean this exact version was technically adapted from the stage for arena tours but is now back on theatre stages and it includes a little bit of everything. Singing, dance, visual effects, jokes (and lots of them), improv, and even cirque.

If you don’t know the story of ‘Elf’ (which at Christmas how couldn’t you?!), let me give you an extremely quick rundown; It basically follows the story of ‘Buddy the Elf’ who isn’t actually an Elf at all but instead human. When he finds this out, he makes his way from the North Pole to New York in search for his dad - and lets just say all types of chaos occurs when you think you’re a real Elf in New York. The next question is can he save Christmas and bring the Christmas spirit back to those who don’t believe?

The cast for this show was very big, every single one of them brought the energy - but I fear it may have been slightly miscast. Playing ‘Buddy the Elf’ was Jordan Conway and he was very close to being perfectly cast. Was he funny? Yes. Was his improv good? Great actually. Did he make people enjoy the show? Absolutely. However, it really pains me to say but his singing just wasn’t quite up to par for a frontman in a touring ‘musical’. As an out and out pantomime character - fantastic - but as a musical character? We may have fallen short slightly, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he was in full control of the audience all night, and his energy speaks for itself! Playing the roles of ‘Jovie’ and ‘Emily Hobbs’ were, Kelly Banlaki and Charlotte Dalton. These guys were both brilliant! Their solo songs were fantastic and Kelly’s aerial work with Jordan was seriously impressive. Talking of aerial work, I can’t not mention Joel Hatton and Romy Bauer the main aerialists of this show. These guys stole the show every time they were on stage, and for Joel to do this as well as being the guy doing the pre-show and interval crowd mingling - Bravo! I would also like to give Dafydd Lansley who played the role of ‘Matthews’ a quick shout-out because he too stole the show every time he was on stage, hilarious. In his personal performance he balanced the line between musical and pantomime perfectly.

When it comes to set and design, there are actually aspects of this that are very impressive. The big set pieces give off that ‘major musical’ vibe, and some of the projection effects work really nicely. The overall lay of the stage is actually great and does exactly what it says on the tin - Christmas. The lighting and auditorium projections were also brilliant and again made the production feel grand. At one point there is even a snow ball fight between the cast and auditorium, and although definitely something that only happens in a pantomime, a lot of people seemed to enjoy the chaos and it kind of worked. One thing that I personally wasn’t a huge fan of was some of the animations on the projector at the back of the stage. Some bits really worked, but others just feel incredibly cheap and unnecessary. The Hobbs house window projection was fantastic, as was the Greenway office projection. However during the songs for some reason they decided to go with what I can only describe as extended GIF loop animations of Santa or an elf or a flying sleigh that had little to do with what was happening. I wouldn’t have minded usually, but it was big enough to the point where it was taking the concentration away from whatever was actually happening on stage. Again, they were close with the mark on this one, but fell short in a few of their design choices I think. But we do all love a bit of magic, and I thought it would come at some point but spoilers, you do get to see Santa’s sleigh fly!

If you’ve read one of my reviews before, you will be more than aware of what I think live music can bring to a show. And I cannot tell you how glad I am that ‘Elf’ had a live band. The band were fantastic! They played Matthew Sklar’s score to perfection and certainly got me into that Christmas mood. There’s actually quite a diverse style difference between a few of the songs and this band smashed it. The band brought so much back to this show and I’m so glad they did decide to use a band instead of a soundtrack for this one. Even the bits that did use a soundtrack (like tap track for the tap dance sequence) was hardly noticeable and it worked together nicely. I think that is down to a great bond between both band and cast and you could really tell that throughout the show!

Overall this show was fun! Was it a musical per se? No definitely not, but I also don’t think it wanted to be. It was a pantomime, and actually more pantomime-y than some actual pantomimes I’ve seen. Crowd participation, tick, in almost every scene. Cheesy jokes and innuendos, tick, in almost every scene. Improv when things would go wrong or not to plan, tick tick tick. To be fair, the improv were some of the funniest moments in the show and they played it off brilliantly. Some of the things in this version of ‘Elf’ just felt a bit unnecessary or confusing as to why they were being put together. I mean the wacky projections, along with the extravagant set pieces, whilst you’ve got an ensemble singing and dancing to a band playing brilliant music, whilst there are 2 aerialists suspended from the ceiling or spinning around on roller skates. There just wasn’t much synergy or cohesion between it all and it was definitely very different to that original musical. Like I’ve said, I don’t think they were necessarily trying to be a musical, they were trying to be a pantomime and a bit of fun, which is exactly what they were. Personally, I don’t think they should have marketed this as the musical version because that isn’t quite what you get.

This isn’t a groundbreaking piece of theatre, but it doesn’t elude to being that. It also isn’t the original musical. At the end of the day, was it fun? Yes. Did people seem to enjoy it? Absolutely. And did it get me in a Christmasy mood? Actually yes. ‘Elf’ is at Mayflower Theatre until December 7th and if you’re a fan of the film or even enjoy yourself a pantomime, get your tickets before they all run out. If tonights audience was anything to go by, auditoriums will continue to be packed the closer it gets the Christmas.