If It Only Even Runs a Minute – Matcham Room

Natalie Casey joined the line-up of If It Only Even Runs a Minute at the Matcham Room, London Hippodrome

If It Only Even Runs a Minute: London Edition 3 was performed at the Matcham Room, London Hippodrome.

For every long-running musical that makes a success in the West End or on Broadway, there are tens, if not hundreds, that fall by the wayside. Most deserve their ignominious fate – but every so often, there are gems among the failures.

Starting life in 2010 as a series of New York cabaret nights, If It Only Even Runs a Minute celebrates the best of the lost musicals, often with guest stars from the shows that flopped. Last year, producer Oliver Southgate created a British equivalent, hosting two concerts at Clapham’s Landor Theatre. Now, for the third UK outing, the venue is upgraded to the Hippodrome’s Matcham Rooms, with the guest star quotient similarly increasing.

Unfortunately, the concept falters almost immediately with Richard Kates reprising his role as DW Griffith from 1980’s The Biograph Girl. A lacklustre number delivered poorly, it serves as a reminder that some shows are really best left to rest in peace.

Thankfully, the evening’s second guest star, Sarah Ingram – who has been in so many short-lived shows that she could become an If It Only Even Runs a Minute regular – is a vast improvement, keeping the audience in fits with the farcical goings on in the salsa musical Murderous Instincts, which somehow managed to scrape through nine performances in 2004. Whatever the problems within the show, though, it has left the legacy of the beautiful torch song ‘Waiting’, delivered with heartbreaking poignancy by Ingram in an arrangement by musical director Barney Ashworth that immediately banishes thoughts of the disastrous times from which it was born.

And from here, the guest performances keep on coming. Michael Matus and Damian Humbley bring the house down for the Act I closing number, ‘Be Yourself’ from the much-maligned Lend Me a Tenor. Matus also shines in a number from the little-known James Goldman and Stephen Sondheim made-for-TV musical Evening Primrose, in Act II.

And it is in Act II where the format seems, even in its first West End outing, to be stretching itself a bit thin. A fledgling musical from just 2012 (the Vietnam War era Dogfight) hardly has the history to be labelled a flop. Nor has The Wedding Singer, which had a passable run on Broadway as well as a well-received UK tour. But at least the latter gives us the charm and humour of Natalie Casey, who is one of our most effervescent of performers.

The star names aren’t everything, though – and the production’s good use of lesser-known musical theatre voices sometimes threatens to eclipse the big names. Rosie Ladkin’s sultry, saucy performance of ‘Lovesick’ from Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Chris Bartlett’s ‘Ode to the Brooklyn Bridge’ (the opening number from the deservedly doomed 1965 shambles, Kelly) will remain in the memory for some time.

As hosts, Southgate and Lydia Grant reprise their shambolic, folksy charm which worked so well in the confines of a small above-the-pub room. In the splendour of the Matcham Room, though, one can’t help but feel that they need to be more Emcees, and less narrators. They also need to brush up on their research, and not rely so much on Wikipedia – although it did produce the highlight of the evening, when Southgate suggested that Alan Jay Lerner had cast his ninth wife in his final musical, Dance a Little Closer. “Eighth! I’m here!” shouted Liz Robertson’s voice from the gallery.

Best. Heckle. Ever.

 Scott Matthewman