The Great British Bake Off Musical continues at the Noël Coward Theatre, London until 13 May 2023.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
It’s not an obvious proposition for a new musical. The Great British Bake Off isn’t beloved for its plot, or even necessarily its characters. The reason millions of viewers around the world tune in to the phenomenally successful baking competition can best be put down to ‘vibes’. We love the cosy familiarity, the low-stakes drama, and the general good-natured atmosphere. This new musical by Jake Brunger and Pippa Cleary attempts to re-create that magic onstage, and it succeeds spectacularly.
Director Rachel Kavanaugh has done a fine job of balancing musical theatre’s need for spectacle with the quirky simplicity of the television show. There is drama, but nothing too nerve-wracking. Alice Power’s sets are gorgeous and often intricate, but never overshadow the human stories being told. This is a show that could fail at the smallest miscalculation of tone, and I am delighted to report that it puts not one foot wrong. It captures the joy of the original series perfectly and offers so much more for anybody who loves a good night of escapism in a theatre.
For many, the most iconic image of The Great British Bake Off is that of its two judges, Paul Hollywood and Dame Prue Leith. Probably holding pies. Here, these personalities are alluded to rather than directly impersonated, in the form of John Owen-Jones and Haydn Gwynne’s Phil Hollinghurst and Dame Pam Lee. There is a winning cheekiness in their portrayals, with plenty of nods to the series for superfans, but with an added layer of musical theatre glitz. As you would expect from two venerated mainstays of the theatre world, they commit completely to their roles and clearly have a lot of fun.
The traditional Bake Off comedy double act presenting team is performed by Scott Paige and Zoe Birkett, who capture the cheesy banter with precision and elicit the biggest laughs of the evening. The eight contestants are similarly well-observed, reflecting the ‘types’ typically featured on the series, while being infused with enough personality to form a deeper audience connection than if they were pure send-up. Claire Moore’s retired dinner lady Babs is a great example: the no-nonsense older woman we’ve all seen on this type of show before, but here driven by a powerhouse performance by Moore which has the whole auditorium whooping and hollering by her show-stopping ‘Babs’ Lament’ number in Act II.
Another standout contestant performance is Grace Mouat as the Oxbridge-educated and confident-to-a-disgusting-fault Izzy. It takes a special skill to portray such a classically risible figure while keeping the audience grinning ear-to-ear whenever she appears onstage. She is a monster of arch-camp, firing off cruel one-liners with affected cheer and taking the roof off with genuinely stunning vocal riffs on numbers like ‘Obviously’.
It is a testament to the quality of the book-writing that of the eight contestants, only one feels perhaps a little lacking in dimension. Fortunately, in the capable hands of Jay Saighal, vegan activist and identifiably Shoreditch hipster Dezza is a scene-stealing delight in his one “week” in the competition (and frequent desperate pop-up appearances afterwards). Cat Sandison’s Italian fashionista Francesca has a heart-wrenching subplot, and her solo ‘Grow’ is a musical highlight. Aharon Rayner’s Hassan is young, confident, and unceasingly loveable, while Michael Cahill’s Russell is the camp engineer of the sort who frequently wins hearts on the series (and is even more enjoyable on stage with Cahill’s brilliant comic timing and Power’s quirky costume design).
If there is a traditional story amidst all this delightful chaos, and if that story has a protagonist, it is Charlotte Wakefield’s Gemma. She is a last minute replacement who lacks self-belief, until the loving and supportive atmosphere leads to a number of star baker awards and even some coveted and much-ballyhooed “Hollinghurst Handshakes” (see ‘The Handshake Song’ for much silliness). Over the course of the competition, she grows close to widowed policeman and father Ben, played by Damian Humbley, resulting in a not-particularly-intense but sufficiently compelling love story. These two performers provide a lot of the heart and momentum of the show, ably assisted by the laughter and positivity emanating from every other performer onstage. Even the band – led by Mark Collins – play with joy, wearing aprons in the orchestra pit.
Cleary’s score (with lyrics co-written with Brunger) is varied and invigorating, providing musical counterpoint for the silliest and most dramatic moments. There are nods to the iconic orchestration with which viewers of the TV series will be familiar, but also numerous and joyous flights of fancy into Parisian romance, noughties boyband pop, and – in a particularly memorable scene for Gwynne’s Pam Lee – showstopping Broadway extravagance. The Great British Bake Off Musical doesn’t entirely avoid the recent curse of composers inserting hip-hop elements apparently influenced more by the work of Lin-Manuel Miranda than the rich wider culture of rap, but these moments are saved by the ever-charming performance of Rayner.
This musical captures the vibe of the television show so perfectly that if you do find the original pointless/saccharine/forced/[insert other complaint here], you may hold similar reservations about this incarnation. However, the good news is that nobody is so cold-hearted as to hold such cynical opinions with sufficient conviction that the delightful gaiety of this musical could not win them over. The Great British Bake Off Musical is sure to be an enormous hit, not least with reluctant partners dragged along against their will who find themselves seduced by the pure loveliness of the world depicted. This new British musical is theatre escapism at its heart-warming best.
Ian Bowkett
- For a full-length interview with John Owen-Jones about working on The Great British Bake Off Musical, his impressive career, and the musicals he loves most, see episode two of Musical Theatre Review’s new The Mayor of Musical Theatre Podcast, available now from all podcast apps.
Comments are closed.