'The Most Sizzling Production Of The Year' at The Chiswick Playhouse
Susan Stanley-Carroll reviews 'I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change'
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An inspiring start for the new leadership team at Chiswick Playhouse, led by recently appointed Executive Director, Mark Perry. The performance of the Off-Broadway hit “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” is a delicious and delightful musical revue that is undoubtedly one of the best productions Chiswick has seen this year.
The musical was written by Joe Dipietro and Jimmy Robert and played Off-Broadway in 1996, travelling the world for 5,000 performances until 2008. This production is being presented for the first time in the UK in our own newly branded Chiswick Playhouse.
Recently Dipietro & Roberts tweaked and updated the script; it reflects the changing sexual mores of relationships in the twenty-first century. An irreverent peep through a keyhole into the diversity of human romances from fumbling teenage passions to deeply perceptive and poignant moments depicting sexless marriages and love that lingers with the elderly.
Fresh, frothy and frivolous, the show lightheartedly explores characters engaged in transgender, homo and heterosexual romances, but ‘self partnering’ ( as we learnt from Emily Watson this week) was only hinted at in Laura Johnson’s beguiling “Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Bride”.
I saw the show on the 5th November, however, the best fireworks that night were in the Playhouse, as the four actors exuded oodles of crackling energy that ignited rapturous laughter from the audience. The actors smoothly scooted from scene to scene singing, dancing and changing not only their characters but their clothes with aplomb and finesse.
Dominic Hodson, Laura Johnson, Naomi Slights, and George Rae are well seasoned, professional, actors (read their list of credits) and they radiated professionalism and confidence. Each one of them gave riveting performances. The comic timing, often saucy, was spot on. Every word could be heard and that does not always happen - even in this cosy studio theatre.
Stuart Pedlar, the Musical Director, keeps a popping pace with his seamless non-stop virtuoso performance on the piano.
This show must move on and be seen in the West End and return back to Broadway. This time on Broadway and not off it!
Charlotte Westenrea, the director, is to be congratulated on creating an exquisite production; she is superbly supported by Steven Harris’s frisky choreography. Neill Brinkworth’s keen lighting enhanced Verity Johnson excellent costumes - oh my goodness, there are SO, SO many of them TOO.
During 2019 we have watched and enjoyed many memorable productions, at the Tabard, however, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” is the most sizzling production of the year. It sets a high bar for future shows but that is what is expected in Chiswick’s cultural environment these days.
Tickets are selling fast - the studio theatre has only 80 seats - the show is just over an hour long - and is a near perfect production. SO. Run fast to the Box Office, dial 020-89956035 or go online to the website and make sure you grab a ticket to laugh your way from one cold November night into the next cold November day.
Reckon I will see the show again - and will snatch the last ticket from the Box Office and maybe out of your reach!
Susan Stanley-Carroll
Also coming to Chiswick Playhouse:
From 4 December to 4 January, Chiswick Playhouse will present a reimagined
take on the classic Christmas tale Hansel and Gretel, directed by Lucy Jane Atkinson (A Hundred
Words for Snow, Trafalgar Studios; Vespertilio, VAULT Festival). This children’s adventure will
take audiences far from city life, gaming and social media into a world of lollipop houses and
tap-dancing cockroaches. Here lives a witch with a penchant for single-use plastic and the only
remaining sustainable food source: children.
Another festive option, Christmas at Chiswick Playhouse is a series of Sunday evening concerts throughout December, featuring a host of the UK’s leading musical theatre talent. With free mulled wine, songs from hit shows and Christmas classics.
Blowing away those January blues, the New Year will see emerging artists across
comedy, magic and new writing come to Chiswick Playhouse for a run of week-long
engagements. Paul Aitchinson’s unique mix of mind-melting magic and bonkers character
comedy in Could It Be Magic is followed by the subversive take on Tudor History, Great
British Mysteries: 1599. To conclude the month, Get Over It Productions present The Scene, a
festival of new writing with 30 short plays across five nights.
Running from 5 to 29 February, the revival of Tryst will return following a sell-out run in 2017, once again directed by Phoebe Barran (Four Days In Hong Kong, Orange Tree Theatre; award-winning short film Snapshots). Based on a true story, this tense thriller is about the serial fraudster, George Love, who encountered a naïve and vulnerable shop-girl, Adelaide Pinchin, in Victorian London. What follows shocks them both as Love’s elaborate heist begins to unravel in frightening and unpredictable way.
Chiswick Playhouse will continue The Tabard’s reputation as a comedy venue, with
numerous emerging and high-profile comedians, including Love Island’s Iain Stirling who will
perform in March.
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November 9, 2019
