Preview: DELICATE: THEIR MUSICAL, Phoenix Arts Club

Photo credit: Kyle Hugh Media

The London preview of Dairmuid & Victoria McLaughlin’s new show Delicate: Their Musical is a fond testament to the can-do spirit and ambition of independent fringe producers. 48 hours of staging and rehearsal has brought to life this new musical with more vim and energy than the usual framework of a musical workshop, stunted and static behind music stands.

Delicate: Their Musical is an unusual piece of matchmaking, scoring the intensity of neurosurgery and cardiology with music by Taylor Swift. The story hangs on the budding relationship between Dr Paige Warwick and Dr Sean Humphrey, a love complicated by Humphrey’s cartoonishly villainous wife, and the precarity of their professional life as surgeons.

This is an interesting setting for a musical, and the staging and choreography displayed at in this small-scale sneak preview hints at what could be a visually arresting and dynamic full-scale production.

Occasionally the music fits very well, although for the sake of variety and pacing, it would be interesting to see more experimental arrangements to make the music fit the story, rather than the other way round. More harmonies, at least, would help this to feel more like a musical than a karaoke performance. The choice of ‘Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?’ as the villain number for Humphrey’s irredeemably wicked wife would also work better if it had more of a driving beat and pace – as it is, it drags a little and blends with the other plodding melodies that are indistinct from each other without Swift’s highly produced backing.

Special mention deservedly goes to Eoin Kelly, who steals the show as drag queen Mirror Ball.

We are unsure how much the score can be adapted within the permissions and licensing of the musical but with some tweaks, this show has the germ of something heart-warming and life-affirming.

Previewed by: Livvy Perrett