Something Rotten! in Concert at Theatre Royal Drury Lane – review

After a Broadway run of over 700 shows and ten Tony nominations, a West End transfer for Something Rotten! seemed inevitable on paper. But nearly a decade on and UK fans are having to settle for just a taste: two nights of an “in concert” production with the 28-piece London Musical Theatre Orchestra.

It’s the 1590s and Nick and Nigel Bottom are playwrights. But everyone knows there’s only room for one dramatist: the great, almighty Shakespeare.

As well as being late on a loan payment, Nick finds out his wife is pregnant, so the pressure is well and truly on to oust the Bard King and write the best play London has ever seen. Now desperate, Nick goes to a soothsayer named Thomas Nostradamus to find out, first, what the future holds for theatre – musicals, obviously – and second, what Shakespeare’s greatest play will be. The future rushes past Thomas in a crazed blur: a little shop of whores, a stage full of singing cats. He finally announces that Shakespeare’s greatest play will be: “The Tragedy of Omelette”. So close. So, Nick busies himself and his brother writing the world’s first musical about eggs (and Danishes? It’s a breakfast theme).

Although one of the book writers is, in fact, British, it feels strangely like Americans trying to invent panto: it’s camp, anachronistic and ultimately descends into chaos. But the writing team of Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell seem afraid to push it all the way, to make it properly bawdy and irreverent. Instead, in true Broadway style, they amp up the production value, and the main joke throughout is the impressive high-kicking chorus line and the onstage choir on a backdrop of dreary 16th-century London.

The songs aren’t especially catchy, but they’re good fun. The staging goes into surreal overdrive for the play-within-a-play’s opening number “Make an Omelette” in which we see Nostradamus’ future-telling powers predict Macavity, who obviously isn’t there, Omelette’s ‘phantom’ father wearing a black cape and a white half-mask, and Elder Price just hanging out, while a sequin-yolked fried egg gives us the chorus of “And I Am Telling You”. As I said, chaos.

The idea has legs and, as Jason Manford comments in his programme interview, there’s something winningly Blackadder about it in concept. But it’s just a little too sterilised to reach its full potential. The jokes are almost rude, almost funny, and there’s a constant tugging in the sentimental direction which limpens the plot. That said, it’s a musical theatre enthusiast’s dream, with innumerable references to pretty much every musical ever staged.

Manford holds court with aplomb, bringing his sharp comic timing and surprisingly buff vocal chords. Richard Fleeshman’s Shakespeare is perfectly hateable, loose-hipped and smarmy. The star of the show, though, is Gary Wilmot as Nostradamus who appears to be having such a great time on stage, he’s giving SNL celebrity guest energy.

You will learn absolutely nothing about the Renaissance, which is fine by me: I have no interest in seeing a historically accurate Shakespearean breakfast play (or do I?). Despite the script’s decided lack of bite, my main takeaway from the evening is the sheer joy of the audience: all 2,000 of them seemingly already massive fans, they laugh at jokes before they’re made, mouth along with every line, and the standing ovation is immediate. They are clearly ravenous for a West End run, so I say give them one. Something Rotten! won’t be the greatest musical London has ever seen, but it’s got broad appeal and there’s clearly an appetite for it.