Directed by Matthew Parker

Review by Annie Aslett

Musicals: the Marmite of the theatre world. Love them or love to hate them, Alexander S. Bermange’s I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical is a spectacle that can be enjoyed by anyone on the love-hate spectrum. 

Whether you’re a casual or fanatical musical theatre consumer, this show is for you. If you are an eye-rolling, long-suffering partner-or-friend-of-a-musicals-lover, this show is (uniquely) for you too (and you’ll be dragged to it anyway). And if you’ve ever wished that Neil Patrick Harris’ opening number at the 2012 Tony’s lasted over an hour and didn’t just exist in the bowels of YouTube, then this show is definitely for you. 

Directed and choreographed by Matthew Parker, I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical is a guided tour through songs of the weird and wonderful quirks of musical theatre performers and audiences alike. Our tour guides are Jennifer Caldwell, Sev Keoshgerian, Rhidian Marc and Julie Yammanee. A pre-show flick through the programme at the cast résumés should be enough to convince you of the calibre of performance you will see, but seeing these four bring each song to life exceeds all expectations. Aside from the faultless vocal performances on display, each team member brings charisma and comedy chops by the bucketload. 

The show is structured as a series of songs based around a stereotypical moment or character from the world of musical theatre. The witty songwriting accompanied by the actors’ pitch-perfect comedic acting leaves you guaranteed to be laughing out loud. Genuinely hilarious and catchy tunes like ‘The Diva’s in the House’ and ‘Superfan’ (during which this reviewer felt simultaneously seen and called out) will have you crossing your fingers that there is a cast recording somewhere (alas, there is not – although the titular track is on Spotify). As well as group numbers that show off the cast’s chemistry, each performer has their moment in the spotlight, all of which serve to remind you of the immense talent required to entertain an audience solo. 

Keoshgerian gets the biggest laughs of the evening with his depiction of a performer struggling through a set while ill. Jennifer Caldwell sparkles throughout but is particularly masterful during the aforementioned Diva number. Rhidian Marc and Julie Yammanee impress with their terrible singing – intentionally, during numbers poking fun at pitch-averse and rhythmically-challenged performers. Acrobatically switching between pitches, keys and rhythms, these numbers are the high points of the show and surely take much more skill to master than the bog-standard perfect vocal performances that are otherwise on display. 

A must-see for musical theatre lovers and love-to-haters, I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical is showing until the 27th of August at Gilded Balloon at the Museum. If you miss it in Edinburgh, catch the show at Wilton’s Music Hall in London from 29th August – 9th September.