Review: FLOP! THE BEST SONGS FROM THE WORST MUSICALS, Phoenix Arts Club
Photo credit: Jasper Wood
Arthur Hull has arrived in the UK from Australia for a run at Edinburgh Fringe this summer followed by a few nights at Wilton Music Hall in September. He calls the show Flop: The Best Songs From The Worst Musicals. This young man with a passion for musical theatre was a finalist on The Voice Australia and starts by explaining the premise of the show is that for every Broadway hit musical, there are fifty flops but he claims that nearly every musical flop has at least one good song. He may have good vocals, accompanies himself on the organ with panache and has an amusing line in banter, but he does not quite make the case with some of the songs he selects! Hull sees the show as a celebration and a tribute to all the artistes who have worked so hard to create these flops. He himself looks like he might have lost his shirt on backing a production, but he delivers it all with such charm and energy that we want him to succeed.
There is no mention of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along (1981, which after two months of previews and sixteen performances closed) or Alan Jay Lerner’s two flops, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (1976, 13 previews and 7 performances) and Dance a Little Closer (1983, which opened or closed on the same night), but Andrew Lloyd Webber does not escape his ridicule for Love Never Dies (2010) which never even made it to Broadway after its West End run, despite closing for a few days mid-run for a rewrite.
He starts by recreating the camp 80s choreography from the 1988 Broadway transfer of Carrie with Linzi Hateley that closed after 16 previews and 5 performances, before recalling Babes in Arms - the 1937 musical that is best known for the song ‘My Funny Valentine’. Moby Dick (1992) opened to scathing reviews and closed after four months but ‘A Whale of a Tale’ is hardly an example of a great song! King Kong (2013 in Australia) was another example of a show with a large mammal that failed. Scandalous (2012, 31 previews and 29 regular performances) gave us ‘A Girl’s Got To Do What a Girl’s Got To Do’ about evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, while Elton John’s 2024 Tammy Faye was another example of a flop about an evangelist reminding us that track record in composing does not guarantee success.
From Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark (2011 ran for 182 preview performances and lost $75million), he offered ‘If The World Should End’ and from Diana (2021 suspended due to Covid, before running for just 16 previews and 33 performances), he sang a medley of tunes. He turned away from Broadway to mock the film Grease II (1982) and Tom Hooper’s movie version of Cats (2019), although at least ‘Macavity’ is a memorable tune. To conclude the show, he appropriately selects a song ‘The King of Broadway’ from The Producers, in which they set to create a flop which turns out to be a success.
There is a charm in hearing the stories of these flops and any fan of musical theatre will enjoy the show and its audience interactions, but despite his excellent vocals and personality, we were left with little doubt why these musicals failed! Don’t necessarily go for the songs, but do enjoy this hour-long, well researched dip into musical theatre history.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne