Man!fest musical review – boy band send-up hits all the right notes

Lampooning boyband culture might initially feel like aiming for low-hanging fruit – particularly given the era of slick, manufactured pop groups has largely faded into history (take Simon Cowell’s recent, terrible Netflix show as an example).

However, OnTheNose Productions’ sharp, witty drag musical Man!fest, running at Pleasance Courtyard, manages to bypass cheap nostalgia by turning its lens toward the wider cultural machinery of the era, exploring the intense impact on the young women who grew up worshiping groups like One Direction and The Wanted. For an audience now old enough to reflect on that mania, the production hits with a surprising sense of urgency and resonance.

At its core, the production boasts an extraordinarily strong concept packed with sharp wit. We follow four-person band Man!fest, made up of bad boy Ash, pretentious home counties heartthrob Ewan, abs-obsessed Cody and prepubescent mess Ruben across the second ill-fated yet eagerly anticipated world tour, plotting their third album and all manner of other hijinks along the way.  The script lands a relentless barrage of hilarious one-liners, matched by brilliant audience interaction that strikes the perfect balance – it is side-splittingly funny without ever feeling aggressive or intrusive.

Musically and visually, the production is immensely entertaining. Choreography is tightly executed and full of energy, perfectly complementing a soundtrack that evokes the driving, shouty, and pumpy energy that modern boybands landed with spades. The satire, too, is handled with impressive restraint; it remains delightfully subtle rather than overwrought, allowing the comedy to land naturally without over-explaining its jokes.

Where the production stumbles is in its pacing: nearing the hour mark you find yourself clock-watching, realising with growing dread that there simply isn’t enough run time left to resolve the narrative threads. True to that fear, the musical ends far too abruptly, leaving the story feeling prematurely truncated.

Despite this sudden finale, the underlying material is undeniable. With an extra 15 to 20 minutes to flesh out its final act – expanding into a full 90-minute narrative – Man!fest has all the makings of a bumper West End-ready hit.

It is a wildly funny, clever, and energetic piece of musical theatre that simply needs a new ending to fully reach its undeniable potential.