Fringe review: ARTHUR HULL’S FLOP: The Best Songs From The Worst Musicals Ever Written, Gilded Balloon
Photo credit: Jasper Wood
In the musical theatre industry, us critics don’t tend to go out of our way to go and see shows that have been condemned by our peers as absolute flops, unless - of course - curiosity pulls us there; after all, theatre is divisive, but we were very keen to go and see Arthur Hull’s new show FLOP at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, which is a show that features the BEST songs from big shows that critically and/or commercially flop.
This is a one-man show featuring The Voice finalist Arthur Hull who has travelled all the way from Australia to perform the show. Our question: can one man and two keyboards and a bunch of obscure musical theatre songs keep us engaged for an hour? Besties, we LOVED it!
Whilst we already loved the concept, the reason this show works is because of Arthur Hull. He oozes charisma from the moment he enters the stage and the audience takes an instant liking to him. He is warm, personable, engaging, and has a world class voice to top it all off.
Hull takes us through a journey of fantastic flops, from musicals that are well versed such as Carrie and the notorious sequel of The Phantom of the Opera, but he also introduces us, as you might hope, to flops from musicals we’d never heard of like King Kong and Moby Dick. Did you know there was Moby Dick musical? We didn’t!
In between songs featuring Hull’s stunning vocals, he tells us stories and charm us with funny costume changes and at one point… an astoundingly impressive handstand!
To top it off, Hull then gives us a rendition from the very successful and very on brand show, The Producers. But the highlight of the whole show is Hull’s final performance, and one of our favourite songs as it happens, ‘When I Grow Up’ from Matilda. This truly showcases Hull’s vocal ability, not only as a performer but a recording artist, and you could hear a pin drop in the audience.
We had a wonderful evening at the show and if you are up at the Fringe for its final week this year, we highly recommend adding this show to your list.
It may be called FLOP, but this show is an utter triumph.
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: James Edge
