Romantics Anonymous – Bristol Old Vic

Romantics Anonymous, live-streaming from Bristol Old Vic.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The future of musical theatre is bright and it is thrilling. At this very moment, countless young creatives from many different backgrounds are locked down in their bedrooms crafting it, striving away at scripts and scores. One day, we will step back into an auditorium and be blown away by a piece so new and so fresh it will knock the overpriced glass of theatre wine right out of our hand.

Until then, with the again worsening global pandemic, the immediate future of musical theatre is probably going to have to be live-streaming.

Romantics Anonymous – Emma Rice’s adaptation of the award-winning French-Belgian film, Les Émotifs anonymes – does not feel like the future. Between its 60s-inspired costumes and its admirable (if possibly overzealous) commitment to traditional structure, nothing about it screams revolution. However, it may just be the perfect production for our present moment.

After months of lockdown, Rice’s Wise Children, Bristol Old Vic and Plush Theatricals are taking their best shot at providing us with an approximation of the theatre experience. This production is performed by a full cast and crew at an audience-less Bristol Old Vic and live-streamed to a different part of the world every night as part of a virtual ‘tour’.

The story follows two chocolate makers; one who is so tied to tradition his business is failing in the modern world, and another whose innovative skills with confectionary are surpassed only by her crippling social anxiety. Both are awkward misfits who just so happen to be single. When presented with two such well-fitting jigsaw pieces, of course any audience is going to root for them to find one another.

There could be a reading of the script in which the traditional chocolatier Jean-René comes across as a villain. After all, he is frequently rude and runs his workplace in a manner that would cause any HR manager’s head to explode. However, Marc Antolin is loveably gawky in the role. He makes clear how difficult it is for his character to do what more socially competent people may consider to be obvious, so we forgive him his mistakes and root for his happiness.

He bumbles amiably through the show, bemusing an energetic supporting cast of idiosyncratic characters. Me’sha Bryan is excellent in her portrayal of two hilarious yet very different characters; an overworked factory employee and an excitable young girl. Not to be outdone, Omari Douglas and Gareth Snook both mix drag roles into their roster of characters to uproarious effect. Philip Cox is also fantastic, and central to some of the show’s most poignant moments as the ghost of Jean-René’s father, among other roles.

As zanily entertaining as the rest of the cast are, the show would not be nearly as affecting and delightful without the grounding brilliance of Carly Bawden at its centre. She plays Angélique, the “chocolate savant” liable to faint at the very suggestion of a social interaction. This is a part a billion lightyears away from her last role(s) as the Roses in Boulevard Theatre’s incredible but very different Ghost Quartet, but here she proves herself to be just as adept with the traditional as she is with the experimental.

Angélique’s growing desperation to escape her worsening social anxiety is a theme that hits differently this year. Many are becoming increasingly isolated as the lockdown continues, with the prospect of having to eventually readjust to the world outside growing ever more daunting. This makes it truly joyous and inspiring to see Bawden sing and dance along her path to happiness, warmly showing that there is always hope.

Although these themes of social anxiety and knowing jokes about hand sanitiser feel very of the moment, the songs (lyrics by Christopher Dimond and music by Michael Kooman) are evocative of musical theatre’s past. Musical director Tom Brady does a magnificent job bringing them to life with his four-piece mini-orchestra – creating a classic sound that has been missing from our lives for too long. It truly does transport you to the auditorium. When the predictable but satisfying happy ending comes, the impulse to applaud the entire cast and crew is just as strong as it would be in a theatre where they could actually hear you.

This livestream of Romantics Anonymous is an expertly executed throwback, and a perfect reminder of the musical theatre we miss so much. It has no pretensions to be anything more, and nor should it. This is comfort eating of the best kind. The very best, sweet, delicious, do-it-in-your-pyjamas-on-the-sofa kind of comfort eating.

Ian Bowkett