REVIEW: NOW That’s What I Call a Musical at Mayflower Theatre

Let’s party like it’s 1989 as ‘NOW That’s What I Call a Musical’ turns Southampton’s Mayflower Theatre into 1989 Birmingham. This new musical from the mind of Pippa Evans takes us back to the 80s via our favourite tracks which can all be found in the iconic compilation albums that are, NOW. Naturally this is a jukebox musical, featuring songs such as ‘Gold’, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, and many many more. When a jukebox musical isn’t biographical, the story is always something that I start to worry about as it has to be original but still filter in all of these songs that are well known and loved. This usually means that the story line isn’t the strongest, and the musical itself tends to be cheesy and camp - something that ‘NOW’ (which is what I’m shortening the title to) definitely is, but also isn’t.

The size and theming of this whole production was incredibly impressive. The set, the music (obviously), and the amount of thought that has gone into the technical side of this show is brilliant. When it comes to the content of the show, is it cheesy and camp? Extremely! However…  it also has a darker side and thicker plot that I really wasn’t expecting from a comedy, feel-good musical. Does this particularly work? I’m not 100% sure but more on this later. The musical does however feature a strong cast that has very good technical direction and choreography from ‘Strictly Come Dancing’s’ Craig Revel Horwood. The story takes us through the life and friendship of two best friends and what happens at a school reunion 20 years later. That is an incredibly brief synopsis of what happens but I don’t want to give too much away. It was super refreshing going into a musical not already knowing the story or some part of the story. One thing I can say is that ‘NOW’ is absolutely a quintessentially British musical.

As I mentioned above, the cast for this show were strong. The casting was actually pretty spot on. There are some celebrity headliners for this show, one of which being ‘Eastenders’ Nina Wadia who plays the role of ‘Gemma’. You can tell why Nina is an award winning actress because not only did she put on a great comedy performance, her performance in the more serious parts of the show were beautiful. Starring alongside her (for her first show) was 2013 ‘X-Factor’ winner, Sam Bailey as ‘April’. Being the winner of X-Factor, its no surprise that Sam’s voice was knock-out but WOW! What a voice! It’s a shame we didn’t get to hear more of it in all honesty - feel like there was a slight wasted opportunity there for sure. This isn’t to take away from her acting either however, I think she had the best Brummie accent of the night. On the note of the Brummie accent, Brummies you may want to look away momentarily as the accents may not have been the best. At times I didn’t know if they were over pushing the accent comedically or not. In some of the songs, the over-pronunciation of the accent actually took away from what the song was meant to be/how it was meant to be sung.

On ‘NOW’s’ tour, different venues are getting different guest star appearances. They act almost as a ‘Teen Angel’ type character and I think Southampton got blessed with the best of the bunch as they had pop icon Sonia. Although only a bit part, she definitely got the audience reception she deserved. Personally I do think there was one person that stole the limelight tonight, and that was Maia Hawkins who played the role of ‘Younger April’. She was by far the stand out performer. A true triple threat and it was her professional debut! Her rendition of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ was fantastic. Bravo Maia! I’d also like to give a quick shoutout to Kieran Cooper who played ‘Young Tim’. His performance was electric. Hilarious and one hell of a voice. A strong voice is something that can be said for this whole cast actually - singing in a musical about a musical compilation album - no wonder it was so strong.

I thought this set was fantastic. Pre-show in the auditorium, 80s music is playing and we see the set as it is, a pub where the majority of the story takes place - with a big lit up sign saying the title of he musical. When we visit different places in the show, the set is pulled apart and transformed by the cast to reveal that next place; the park, the video store, Gemma’s kitchen etc. It was nice to see a show that isn’t heavily reliant on projections. It just goes to show that physical always works so much better. The lighting was also perfect as well. It would go from normal scene lighting to show-gig lighting within seconds. With the show constantly jumping from current tense to past tense I thought it was really clever how they used light to block this up. They used different coloured spots to show the differences between the times and it was super effective. When it comes to the costumes as well, the differences between the 1989 and 2009 costumes were vast and something that the designers have clearly thought about! Not to mention the ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ costumes…

As for the music, we all know the importance that a live band brings to a musical and I again am pleased to say that ‘NOW’s’ live band smashed it. When playing tunes everybody knows and nothing original, it could be so easy to use a soundtrack and cut that corner - but the music was spot on. I'd like to quickly mention the multiple bass warps that could be heard in multiple songs. I LOVED this and think it was a perfect addition. I’ve already mentioned Maia’s version of ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’, but I also loved the music and instrumental/dance break of ‘Flashdance/Ride On Time’. There was every possible nod to the 80s during this mashup both musically and in the choreography. This was definitely a highlight of the show for me and you can 100% tell that this section was choreographed by Craig! One piece of choreo that felt like a fever dream was the ‘Chicago-esc’ dance break during ‘Tainted Love’. I mean what was happening there?! One thing I will note is that every other song seemed to be ballad when it didn’t always necessarily need to be.

I’m not 100% sure that the show knew what it wanted to be at times. It lent itself to the comedy aspects and genre perfectly but then it would keep leaning into a more serious vibe - it was like flitting from hot to cold constantly, which was confusing. However, it was fun and that can’t be denied. It was nostalgic and there were aspects of the show as a whole, I’m talking set and small bits of dialogue that were just extremely relatable in a nostalgic way if that makes sense. One thing I am confused about is the fact throughout the whole of the show, ‘NOW’ wasn’t mentioned once. Not even a little nod to the albums or anything. They did point out that they were listening to music either on a walkman or through the DJ but I feel like not mentioning the ‘NOW’ albums as time passes through the show is a big missed opportunity here.

Overall ‘NOW That’s What I Call a Musical’ was good fun and it had a bit of everything! Did it need a bit of everything? Probably not, but that doesn’t take away from the clear enjoyment and nostalgia that you could see throughout  the auditorium. Technically the show was very impressive and also aesthetically it was beautiful - and that’s before we even mention the stand-out singing performances. ‘NOW’ is on at Mayflower Theatre until Saturday the 18th before continuing on its UK Tour. I’d definitely recommend getting tickets if you are a fan of the ‘NOW’ albums and remember your first ‘NOW’ (mine was NOW 64!). I think the best bit of feedback you could possibly get when touring a new show is a standing ovation at the end of the show during the awaited megamix!