FestBuzz

What: Scott Mills — The Musi­cal
Where: Pleas­ance One
When: 10.30pm, Tue 11  —  Fri 14 Aug
How Much: Free (see venue for small ticket allo­ca­tion from 8am daily)

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Scott Mills is def­i­nitely one to make a song and dance over. A musi­cal with panache, self-referential humour and great tunes.”

I’m not tra­di­tion­ally a lover of musi­cals. But some­how within the open­ing moments of last night’s debut per­for­mance of Scott Mills: The Musi­cal, I was swept away with energy and humour and found myself ador­ing it.

I had been warned that as I’m not a die-hard fan of Radio 1, (I’ve felt a bit too old to be lis­ten­ing to it since I left uni­ver­sity and words like “bare” inex­plic­a­bly changed their mean­ing), I might be a bit left out and not get all the in-jokes. For­tu­nately the musi­cal was a grand mix of ref­er­ences, half-truths, celebrity appear­ances, par­o­dies of pop­u­lar TV shows and some great digs at the man­age­ment struc­ture at Radio 1 — there really was was some­thing for sim­ply everyone.

Joe Tay­lor is charm­ing and buoy­ant as the show’s epony­mous star and gets the tone just right by play­ing the role (in a the­atri­cal sense) straight. Lau­rie Hagen is a bit of a scene-stealer as chirpy side­kick Becky. Her sig­na­ture love theme ”Not Allowed’ has some great lines and the chem­istry between Hagen and Guy Lewis as man­ager Rob is palpable.

Spe­cial high­lights include pre-recorded video nar­ra­tion from The Hoff, cameos by Scott Mills as The Hoff, and a ver­sion of YMCA that I will pos­si­bly never get out of my head.

If Scot Mills: the Musi­cal is lack­ing at any point,  it’s per­haps only the danc­ing which lacks the pol­ish of the rest of the show. It isn’t quite per­fect but given the fast turn­around of this fan-inspired piece, it’s cer­tainly of an accept­able qual­ity. Judg­ing by the furore this musi­cal is cre­at­ing across Face­book, unof­fi­cial fan sites and Twit­ter, it will go down in Radio 1 his­tory as some­thing truly spe­cial. I am hope­ful they will take it down south for a run at some stage too as this has the poten­tial for very real, wide-ranging appeal.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Elise Bramich