Why Am I So Single? – Garrick Theatre

Jo Foster and Leesa Tulley in Why Am I So Single? at the Garrick Theatre, London. Picture: Danny Kaan

Why Am I So Single? continues at the Garrick Theatre, London until 13 February 2025.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

There is a very niche subgenre in musical theatre where the setting of the musical is the writing of the musical itself. From chamber musical [title of show] to Tony-winning A Strange Loop, which reached London last year, the self-referential nature of shows documenting their own process can very much be hit-or-miss. A large part of whether audiences enjoy them is how invested they are in following the path of a tortured musical theatre writer – especially when that writer is more successful than most, given that we’re watching a staged production of their work.

Six The Musical creators Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’s first major West End production since their breakout hit (although the pair did collaborate with Zak Ghazi-Torbati for Marlow and Ghazi-Torbati’s autobiographical cabaret, Hot Gay Time Machine) they have similarly decided to place themselves on stage. And so in Why Am I So Single? we enter a world where two young people are struggling to come up with ideas for a musical which they have been commissioned to put on at the Garrick, even as they juggle their own, and each other’s, disastrous love lives.

The risks associated with this postmodern self-referential approach are mitigated by the writers – and their character equivalents – being unapologetic about their love of musical theatre, and welcoming the audience to feel the same. Pauses in action to talk to the audience are common, and in order to fictionalise the story further, all the characters involved are given names from the onstage pair’s favourite musical, Oliver!

And so we meet ‘Oliver’, the Marlow surrogate (Jo Foster), a gender non-conforming riot who loves to be the centre of attention, and his best friend and co-writer ‘Nancy’ (Leesa Tulley), a straight woman who is struggling to move on from her ex. While trying to fend off calls from their agent inquiring about the progress of their musical, they are more wont to huddle together on the couch and commiserate over their mutual single status with a Friends marathon or the Twilight movies.

And when it becomes clear that the self-referential nature of the musical is a plot convenience rather than the point of the show, the fun really starts. From the first time we see that Oliver’s flat is populated by members of the ensemble assuming furniture from fridges to hatstands and curtains, we know we are in a world written by, and based on, people who love the conventions of live theatre but refuse to keep colouring within its lines.

That sense of fun comes through in the songs as well. ‘8 Dates’, in which Oliver narrates their way through their most recent (disastrous) attempts to go out with men, has already become a hit on TikTok thanks to its ridiculously catchy melody and hilarious, relatable lyrics. It’s one of several ensemble numbers that really shows off Marlow and Moss’s sense of silliness and fun. But it also keys up some of the key points of the musical’s more serious message: that the answer to “why am I so single?” may be more at hand than one thinks.

But in Act I at least, such introspection is rare. There’s a delightful sequence in which Friends’ final episode is adoringly ripped to shreds (‘I Got Off the Plane’). And when Nancy meets up with friend Artie (Noah Thomas), we get another earworm of a number. ‘C U Never’ documents how much we fret about online conversations – what we type, what we type and delete before sending, how we stress about delays between replies – using the familiar rhythms of tapping on mobile keyboards to lead into a large scale tap dance, highlighting the wonderful choreography of Ellen Kane (who also co-directs with Moss). We may be single, the musical posits, but at least we’re having fun.

This approach does begin to show the strain in the back half of Act I. ‘Meet Market’, a number about the grind of shopping for potential dates on dating apps, feels like it’s retreading concepts others have done before and better. And while there’s an opportunity for Tulley to show her vulnerable side in ‘Just in Case’, the worry that the musical might be unable to sustain itself for its full length begins to creep in.

That concern abates with a return to the outré, as the presence of a bee in Oliver’s flat throws the central pair into a panic that makes them temporarily forget that they’ve started to blame each other for their romantic failures. ‘Interlude in B Minor’ is a ridiculously silly way to take a show into an interval, but in its sheer silliness it encourages us to stick around and stay with these characters into Act II.

And it is in the second act where the emotional groundwork that has been sprinkled through Act I really bears fruit. Foster’s Oliver talks about how the old sitcoms that he and Nancy love can include all the most damaging homophobic and transphobic tropes, leading into the frenetic ‘Disco Ball’, in which they illustrate how that can manifest as self-hatred, and how in so many LGBTQ+ people the pain is always eating away even if we don’t let others see it.

The other big emotional beat comes for Tulley, as her character begins to understand how her own life experience has been holding her back. ‘Lost’ encapsulates both the loss of a loved one, and the loss of purpose in having to continue without them. It’s a phenomenally powerful rug-pull, in a show that presents itself as a frothy look at how modern is dating is awful, to include one of the most emotionally devastating musical theatre numbers of recent times.

But that is the key to charm of Why Am I So Single? Like Nancy and Oliver, it puts on this face of being a sparkly jamboree of whimsical silliness. But inside is a heart of gold.

Strip away all the musical theatre references – which are broad enough to tickle even the most infrequent of theatregoers – and you are left with a show that uses the self-referential format to make its point of the need for introspection cleverly, deftly and with such warmth it’s impossible not to listen. If, like the title of this show, you are asking why you are so single, you must complete the strange loop yourself: the only person who can truthfully answer that question is you.

Scott Matthewman