Rating: ★★
Venue: The Other Palace, London
Cast: Lewis Bear Brown, Clodagh Greene, Tom Newland, Ayesha Patel
Four broken hearts must face the past and look to the future, as they march into the strange and often hilarious world of love.
Love Quirks is an award-winning musical about a group of flatmates who explore the bizarre tribulations of love, friendship, and all the blurry lines in-between. What they find is never what they expect, and they must face up to their own Love Quirks to move forward.
I enjoy dismantling the patriarchy over chips and dip as much as the next person, however I unfortunately didn't relate to any of the characters who apparently shared similar interests.
This is a story about...not a lot. We flit between scenes of four characters with a range of relationships and sort-of observe their lives go round in circles for the two hour runtime. There really isn't much depth to the dialogue, and the events are rather repetitive, so instead of chatting about the plot I've shared a diagram below. Consider it less of a love triangle and more of a vaguely flirtatious rhombus.
Some of the scenes dragged and I didn't feel particularly motivated to come back after the interval - there were just no stakes to be invested in.
A small but determined cast were the production's main saving grace. All had respectable vocals (albeit tainted by the studio's screechy sound system) and Lewis Bear Brown was a comedic standout. They really did the best they could with the subpar material on offer, and squeezed every laugh possible out of an otherwise unfunny script.
Some sensory aspects were well done, including nicely textured costumes by Alice McNicholas and an effective set (Bob Sterrett) and lighting design (Oliver McNally) for an often limiting space.
The primary issues definitely lie in the content, as well as some of the finer details like accent authenticity - with T's still being pronounced as Americanised D's by the English actors during their ballad.
Unfortunately this isn't a show I'd recommend for an enjoyable night out, as there's not really much substance to the piece, and it doesn't offer any new or exciting ideas.
You can book tickets to see Love Quirks: A New Musical, here.
Review by Katie
**photo credit: Anna Clare Photography**
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