The Secret Society of Leading Ladies – Barn Theatre, Cirencester

Kayla Carter in The Secret Society of Leading Ladies

The Secret Society of Leading Ladies is streaming via the Barn Theatre, Cirencester until 7 March 2021.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

How do you solve a problem like our lockdown-induced short attention spans? We have grown impatient after the last year of bingeing on-demand entertainment. We need the serotonin hit of our favourite songs and are prepared to press “skip” on an overstuffed cast album to get it. As great as many streamed concerts have been, the prospect of an entire show detached from the focused and distraction-free environment of a theatre is a much less appealing prospect than it was in early 2020.

The novel workaround of Cirencester’s always creative Barn Theatre is The Secret Society of Leading Ladies: a “choose-your-own-adventure” concert of musical theatre hits. Upon paying for your ticket and clicking through to the concert, you are greeted with a choice of three fabulous performers and songs. After selection, you get a bit of banter, a performance, and then your options for the next act. Director Ryan Carter has – cleverly – also shot inter-song dialogue segments, in which the performers you have chosen interact with one another in genuinely funny and charming skits.

This concept is wonderful for group watching – either within your household bubble or over Zoom – as it allows for spirited “musical A is far better than musical B, you incorrigible philistine!”-type discussion. The light-hearted tone of the concert and skits is fun, and despite some initial pretentious worries about losing the art of storytelling through programming, this original approach is a huge success.

The Secret Society of Leading Ladies features 14 incredibly talented performers, but as this is not a conventional concert, reviewing it in the conventional way and commenting on individual performances does not feel quite appropriate. The fun lies in making choices for yourself based on which songs or singers you may have enjoyed before, or who are new to you and you are curious to investigate. To list favourites and give recommendations would rather spoil that fun. But rest assured, all performers are excellent in their own way and after replaying the show multiple times and experiencing every performance, I can guarantee no combination would make for a bad show.

The concept is engaging, the performances are exemplary, and the production values are excellent. The only major issue is that a standard £10 ticket only allows you to view five songs of your choice plus a group finale. This works out to about 30 minutes of content. Somewhat better value is the £15 one-day pass which allows you to rewatch this wonderful concert of brilliant musical theatre performances as often as you like and view all 14 songs.

Ian Bowkett