Merrily We Roll Along

 Thurs 27th June – 7:45 Performance

 Harold Pinter Theatre –  £20 Ticket, £4 Programme

Merrily We Roll Along wasn’t my first choice for shows this evening, unfortunately my first choice (A Doll’s House) hasn’t opened yet… Oops a little too keen perhaps :P

Merrily We Roll Along was indirectly recommended to me by a friend’s facebook status; "If you're in London and you've got the moola, go and see Merrily We Roll Along at the Pinter Theatre. Can't recommend enough." which was enough to put the idea in my head when I strolled past the posters in the underground as an option for the evening’s entertainment.

This show is about the hopes and aspirations of three young friends and the gradual destruction of their friendship by a; shall we say Yoko Ono type character and the hunt for fame. Now this all seems very depressing and set to end as a rather depressing show. Well you would be right in thinking this IF the show wasn’t a reverse chronology of the tale. The show opens to a “lively” Hollywood party where we soon discover that everyone is really depressed and wondering where their lives went wrong. Time is wound back through the clever use of the title song and we slowly watch the story (and friendship) unravel, or I should say ravel :-P

The set for the show was mostly a stationary Hollywood Villa-esque house which through the clever use of slide-into-wall-able features and brought-on by the ensemble during song props undergoes a smooth transition through the years and through several different location (house, freshly moved into house, courthouse, office, TV studio etc.). The lighting was mostly naturalistic with the focus sometimes shifting the focus to who is talking as the others continue “talking” etc. and it was also used in one scene to add “wallpaper” to the set.

The songs in the show were quite catchy and I was humming the melody to the title song as I walked to the underground (That means it is good, because there is a Melody you can hum :P – Haha show reference! ).

Despite the unhappy ending *cough* I mean start, the play closes on a very optimistic note and there is a lot of comedy throughout. The character of Mary is quite witty and provides the audience with a lot of laughs and the meta-musical was hilariously cheesy and awful.

You could tell that this is from a slightly older generation of musicals, though it is extremely well done and still very enjoyable for the modern audience. I would recommend it, if you get a chance before it closes on 28th July but if you are not in London for long/can only see a few shows there are quite a few “Must See” shows (Matilda and Once to name two) before this one.