I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical – Wilton’s Music Hall

I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical at Wilton’s Music Hall, London.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Any visit to the glorious, steeped in history Wilton’s Music Hall is enough to put a skip in your step on the way, but there’s also a nagging feeling that given its proud past any producers and actors putting on a production there must feel a certain burden of creative responsibility to do the venue full justice.

Thankfully, I Wish My Life Were Like a Musical, by Alexander S Bermange and presented by James Seabright, is for the most part worthy of the famed space. With tongue firmly in collective cheeks, playing to the gallery (or rather the stalls in this case) and with the stage festooned with enough tinsel and glittery costumes to fill Elton John’s dressing room, this is a fun, musical immersion into the world of the wannabe star and the frustrations, trials and tribulations along the way to fame, failed ambition or perhaps worst of all, stand in anonymity. We get the complete career scenario, plus the additional bonus of a few fun numbers like the one caricaturing musical superfans – aka anoraks.

Directed and choreographed by Matthew Parker, the four-strong cast barely puts a foot wrong and there are singular, standout moments from each. A feeling of ‘been there, done that and got the T-shirt’ certainly emanates from each actor and that lends vital gravitas to the show as a whole – it just wouldn’t work with fresh out of drama school students.

In true showbusiness style, each has their turn in the spotlight, none better than Jennifer Caldwell, transformed magnificently into a total diva, while Sev Keoshgerian excels as he performs a song about the emotional turmoil of being a stand-in waiting for their big chance.

Probably the best comic moment comes in the shape of a number themed on a shared guilty secret – a love of musicals – a football fan (Rhidian Marc), serious drama critic (Julie Yammanee) and heavy metal follower (Keoshgerian), each revelling delightfully in their hidden passion for the musical art form.

The only real disappointment is that this show does pretty much just what it says on the tin, almost exactly what you expect given its title. There are few real surprises and much of the score and script is a little too predictable to sustain full interest throughout. Thankfully, there are enough joyful musical and comedy moments to more than compensate.

Derek Smith