Entertainment… My Arts! - An Intimate Revue

Published Thursday 20 March 2008 at 13:20 by Mark Shenton

With a title like Entertainment… My Arts!, the creators of this intimate revue spoof show are surely tempting providence - and me. But I did nevertheless chuckle a couple of times at its swift, but not very smart or especially up-to-date satire of musical theatre targets.

The Off-Broadway equivalent that it is shamelessly ripped off from, Forbidden Broadway (and from which it steals the Les Mis parody of Bring Him Home that has its tenor lamenting, “This song’s too high”), is far funnier, more ambitious and rudely ruthless in its skewering of Manhattan’s musical landscape.

Even though it hurtles by in just 30-minute sections - audiences can pop into the first one for just £5, then stay on for each further one for £2 each if they so wish (and are masochistically inclined) - there’s a lot of padding, and even though a spoof of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is just about justified by the fact that it is currently touring, it actually closed in the West End two and a half years ago. Ditto the departed Mary Poppins and a tired spoof on its producers’ merchandising obsessions.

It does cram a lot in - Cabaret, Chicago and Avenue Q, Sondheim and Oliver! (sung by a supposed chorus boy who wonders where he’ll be when he’s 45, but already seems beyond it).

The cast are engaging enough, but the material they are given to perform barely registers. One song has them reading out the bad reviews to Behind the Iron Mask - which I’m glad to see they chose The Stage and Sunday Express as papers to pretend they came from - but what’s the point in spoofing a show that was its own bad joke? The same applies should they try to read this one to the audience.