Picture: Scott Rylander
Fanatical continues at the Playground Theatre, London – until 9 December 2018.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
In a 2006 episode of Doctor Who, Marc Warren plays a character who finds a group of people who, like him, are fans of the Doctor. After repeated meetings together, their mutual friendship becomes more important to each other than the reason why they started meeting in the first place. As an evocation of the friendships that can form within fandom, it’s rarely been matched before or since.
New musical Fanatical doesn’t take quite the same approach, but it has a similar belief that fandom provides many benefits to those who participate. That it does so in such an enjoyable way has the potential to be as life-affirming as the fans of fictional TV show Angel 8 find their beloved programme to be.
In the world of Fanatical, Angel 8 is a cult comic from the 1990s which has been made into a US network TV show. Suanne Braun’s convention organiser Trix is stressing, though: despite cosplayers, LARPers, fan artists and slash fiction writers turning up to celebrate their favourite show, she has been tipped off that a lad’s mag writer is turning up to write a hit piece. And also her star attendee, series creator Scott Furnish, is nowhere to be seen…
Reina Hardy’s book and Matt Board’s lyrics drip with accuracy: this feels like people writing from personal knowledge of the convention circuit rather than anyone observing from outside. From an early evocation of how fandom was born out of the message board culture of CompuServe and GeoCities, to confronting the preconceptions others may have about why people choose to immerse themselves so deeply, every sentence drips with familiarity for anyone already aware of this world.
That is not to say that anyone who isn’t already part of the convention scene would feel excluded – at least, one hopes not. Like Sophie Powles’ Andra, who reacts to the news of a possible journalist interloper by choosing to find him and welcome him rather than kick him out, Fanatical extends an arm of friendship, even love, to the “noobs”.
And once you are in, what a treat. Board’s songs are amusing, characters poking fun at themselves and each other the way good friends do: but they also contain a great deal of emotional weight when required. The biggest disappointment is that the strength of Powles’ upper register doesn’t get called upon nearly enough: most of Andra’s lyrics are placed much lower down, stifling the actress’ vocal abilities.
Despite that, Powles’ central character delivers the emotional punches throughout. From dealing with being the subject of a crush from her former babysitting charge, Baxter (Eddy Payne) to her growing affections for journalist Craig (Tim Rogers), Powles fleshes out Andra into a character one hopes one would run into at a genuine convention.
Indeed, Hardy’s book pulls off similar work with all the principal characters. Matters are helped by Braun’s comedic skills, turning the perennially harassed Trix into a simpering schoolgirl when Stephen Frost’s Scott Furnish finally arrives. Although he is drunk and abusive (a result of the show’s unexpected cancellation, because nobody is watching except “nobodies”) it can take a while for the idolatry to wear off in the most ardent fan, and that is something Braun portrays skilfully.
Her best number is ‘Any Moment Now’, a comedy turn in which Braun has to try to seduce Frost as a diversion for some Act II shenanigans. Her clumsy attempts at being alluring (“I want to make sex at you” is a lyric one cannot shake from one’s head, no matter how hard one tries) is a masterclass in cringe, aided by sterling backup by Frost, Payne and Rogers.
In one of the opening songs, cosplayer Andra says of her elaborate costume: “It took too long/It cost the earth/It drove me nuts/And it was worth it.” It’s a verse that Board and Hardy clearly, and correctly, believe applies to their musical.
Directed by Grace Taylor, the show within a show has its own catchphrase: ‘We are small, but we are mighty.’ It is a motto which inspires the TV show’s fans: it also applies to Fanatical, a musical which, despite its small size, meets its mighty ambitions.
Scott Matthewman
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