The Last Five Years: Southwark Playhouse

Was Molly Lynch the understudy Clara in Light in the Piazza? I didn't get to see her but I remember people being positive about her performance so that's good if so.

I was hoping it wouldn't be anyone I already disliked. Never seen either of these two before.

Ml was Katherine Jenkins in Carousel. She was amazing and the best aspect of that production. She was also understudy in Piazza, unfortunately Dove Cameron was on the night I went!

I didn't mind Dove but I didnt leave the Royal Festival Hall thinking wow.

Don't really know either of them but that's not a bad thing.
I did think that we were going to have "bigger names" seeing that the cost of this musical is £27 and its a cast of 2 plus 4 in the band.
Whereas Operation Mincemeat is £22 with a bigger cast.
Im not complaining though as I booked both shows with the PAYG so they have hardly cost anything.

I enjoyed this tonight, a unique take on the material that pays off half the time. Oli Higginson sings well, and Molly Lynch acts well, but their chemistry needs a little work before press night.

Spoilers follow. . .

The unique take here is to have two actor-musicians, who each take to the piano while their opposite number sings.

This could be interesting in two ways: (1) if the pair directed all their passions, positive and negative, toward their love object on the piano; (2) if the pair expressly ignored their love object on the piano as a way of expressing alienation.

As it happens, there is a lot more of (1) than (2), but there is even more of the Singer carrying on like their love object isn't even there, which feels alienating, to us, the audience, as we are very much aware of them, and expecting the actors singing to at least show awareness of the presence of their love object.

It's like the director had a great idea, and then was unsure how much of that idea to incorporate into the show, and the result feels somewhat fuzzy and a little confusing.

I've seen Molly Lynch before, at Southwark and at the Royal Festival Hall, and she's terrific at inhabiting a character completely. As a consequence, you really believe and relate to her comic mishaps that she sings about in "A Summer in Ohio" and "Audition Sequence," for example, and it's easy to fall in love with her impish and vulnerable character, despite the fact that the band sound levels drowned her out a bit in earlier songs.

Oli Higginson had no such problems with the sound levels (typical of preview performances at Southwark, lol, where sound engineers struggle with loud instruments gobbling up all the decibel levels), as he has great belt and exquisite modulation, which made for a delicious "Nobody needs to know," for example. Unfortunately, his character is too muted for much of the early running time, as if all his effort has gone into his voice, rather than his characterisation.

Where Lynch comes across as present and vulnerable and adorable, Higginson comes across like Zac Efron, who he resembles, affably dosed up on weed, amiable, but not fully present in the angst of it all. This reduces our ability to believe in the chemistry of the relationship.

All Higginson needs, I believe, is a dose of Jonathan Bailey's nerviness and enthusiasm, from the previous production of this show, which was so key to his chemistry with Samantha Barks in that show! A little bit more Hugh Jackmanesque showmanship during the "Shmuel song" and the chemistry may yet click before press night.

Another slight directorial faux pas occurred, for me, in the central critical song, "The Next Ten Minutes," where ten minutes of connection are reduced to one minute of connection (perhaps to make it even more precious), but which only the front facing audience have any chance of seeing. I mean, I was front facing myself, but I felt guilt that so many in the audience might be missing out on that pivotal moment.

Anyway, this is not the wonder that Jason Robert Brown directed at the St James, but it unique, worthwhile, and possessed of many precious moments, and it has time to get even better before press night.

I enjoyed myself to the tune of 3 and a half stars.

I was sitting in one of the side blocks, and I got it - but I know the material very well. And actually, given the show's diverging timelines, I rather liked that they only connect in the middle of the song, and that IS more or less how it's written - the song begins with his half of a conversation, builds into a duet, and then ends in her half of the conversation he was having at the beginning, so it really shouldn't be any more than three or four minutes of connection between them at the very most.

We saw this last night.

I've been a fan of the material for many years, so it was great to finally see it staged.

Much like Steve, I thought the two lead performances (particularly Oli Higginson) were excellent and well worth the ticket money alone. The intimate space encourages more subtlety than you'd otherwise get, which makes the surprisingly complex material shine through.

The central gimmick of the other performer playing the piano during the other's songs is, again as Steve said, an excellent idea on paper that is occasionally brilliant and occasionally baffling but mostly doesn't add all that much. I loved the way that the piano playing symbolised that both Jamie and Cathy expected the other to exclusively support their own wants and needs without ever trying to make a true partnership, and one of my favourite subtleties from the directions and performances was that, as Cathy and Jamie are playing, they are portraying their state in their own timeline. Ie, as Cathy is singing the positive I Can Do Better Than That, Jamie's acting as he plays the piano is very distant and distracted as he's about to sing Nobody Needs To Know.

My wife and I differed on the amount of interaction between the performers - Maybe I'm a purist but I'm very much of the mind that the entire precis of the show rotates around the characters never interacting apart from the midpoint when their timelines intersect, so to me the interactions between the two just confused things, particularly the final moment as the lights went down.

Still, I greatly enjoyed it. Love a show at the Southwark and the audience was impeccably behaved. Definitely recommend popping along if you can.

Wow this was just simply stunning this evening, this is such a brilliant take on the piece...go see!

Completely agree with the above, both Oli Higginson and Molly Lynch delivered superlative performances in the intimate space of Southwark Playhouse. One of the most cathartic experiences in the theatre I've had. Very clever reinterpretation of Jason Robert Brown's musical with a simple set design that feels faithful to the writer's original intentions. For a piece which is so treasured, its really heartwarming to see the material so well looked after by a cast and creative team which clearly want to honour the piece rather than do everything they can to "make it their own". I'm still really stunned by how hard this hit me last night, it felt like a big awakening to how powerfully moving this show really is. Honestly, I can't recommend it enough.

Around 95 minutes with no interval when I saw it on Tuesday.