Off-West End Review Roundup (Ride the Cyclone, Hit Machine, The Jonathan Larson Project & Hole!)

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Mickey Jo

So there has been lots of conversation about the best plays and musicals that you could see in the West End this summer. However, not nearly enough is being said about the best shows that you can see off West End. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review roundup on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic and a content creator here on social media and I see hundreds of shows every single year, mostly here in London. And over the past week I happen to have seen a whole bunch of newly opened Off West End plays and musicals. I have the stack of programs and leaflets for you here and today I'm going to tell you about four of them. They are the Jonathan Larson Project at Southwark Playhouse Borough Ride the Cyclone, which is returning to Southwark Playhouse Elephant and then both at the Soho Theatre Hit Machine, a new play as well as the breakout Off Broadway bound Edinburgh Festival Fringe hit Whole. Now each of these very interesting shows merits some explanation and there is plenty to say about them. I'm going to let you know my thoughts about each, about the material, about these productions, about other relevant details, but if you have had the chance to see any of these, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section down below. And if you've seen any other great Off West End shows recently, let us know about those too. Now, if you'd like to know what I thought of off West End plays or musicals which have already opened, check out all of my other reviews wherever you're seeing my face or hearing my voice. For example, my thoughts about Hot Mess running at the Other Palace. Plus make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss my upcoming thoughts about off West 10 shows set to open very soon, including the Ben Platt led Midnight at the Never get at the Meniere Chocolate Factory, which I'm seeing next week. In the meantime though, let us work our way through this stack of programs as I tell you about the best Off West End shows that you can see this summer. Okie dokie. So as always, we're going to approach this chronologically, which begins at the start of the week with the press night performance of the Jonathan Larson Project. Now interestingly enough, I had seen this already Off Broadway for those of you who have. Also, this is an entirely new production directed by John Simpkins, staged in a sort of a thrust formation with the audience around three sides of a playing space at Southwark Playhouse Borough, which is an intimate off West End venue. Now Jonathan Larson of course is the multi award winning musical theatre writer behind the culturally redefining phenomenon that was Rent. He died tragically young. He was never able to see that show's Broadway success and Tony Award wins. He is regarded by many as a voice of a generation. He has been a huge inspiration to many musical theatre composers who have come after him. All of which means there are many people who are going to care very deeply about how you begin to stage a show like this. And it is a fascinating show with an interesting story behind it. It's conceived by the brilliant Theatre historian and producer Jennifer Ash Ashley Tepper, who discovered this collection of Jonathan's songs. Each of them intended for a slightly different purpose, some of them never previously recorded or performed. And she compiled them into, I think it was initially an album and then subsequently there was a concert. Certainly those two things happened first. Then there was an Off Broadway run. It's sort of a review. There isn't a narrative through line, but a small ensemble of performers take turns singing each of these songs in each instance, characterizing them with theatrical storytelling and acting through song, but with no dialogue as such to put them in context, and no sense of continuity from one song to the next of who these individuals are meant to be. Meanwhile, there's a little video introduction at the very beginning which is projected in this production onto a draped cloth. Very rent, very 1990s New York, very bohemian, loft chic. And that fulfills the sort of basic requirements of explaining the life and legacy of Jonathan Larson before we begin, but with no subsequent dialogue. It's less of a Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends or a Sondheim on Sondheim and more of a Marry Me A, but without the narrative through line or putting it together. Those are all examples, by the way, of reviews of the work of Stephen Sondheim. And there's an interesting point to be made here because that's not all of the Sondheim reviews. There is also Side by Side by Sondheim and some more. There have been so many collections of songs that Sondheim wrote either cut songs or some of his most loved compositions and they have been put into these cabaret style review shows. And this is because their there is so much celebrated work that you associate him with, with Jonathan Larson it's a really different story because he never had the chance to write a dozen celebrated shows. And so you're not going to this to hear Jonathan Larson's greatest hits. You're going to this to hear the great hits that never got to be, many of them having been written while he was still a struggling composer, yet to really be discovered in the years before Rent. And so from that perspective, it's really special that this is happening at all. And we also have to consider what, what the goal posts are for audience satisfaction and entertainment. When you're going to see a non narrative review, what would you expect to get out of a Putting It Together or a Stephen Sondheim's Old Friends? What are you going to get out of the Jonathan Larson project? Because when you're buying tickets for this, it's Not a musical as such. It's not the Jonathan Larson musical. It is a project. And the project is for these songs to be platformed and to have them heard by as many people as possible, to have his work be enjoyed and to have life breathed into it finally. And so, you know, from that perspective, the project is already a success, increasingly. So as more and more people go to see this, I do think, with utter respect for the material, there is more that we could do to enhance its presentation. Because, and having seen the show off Broadway, significant progress has been made on this front. It feels really important that we get to, as an audience, understand the context of each of these songs. And from what I remember, when they did this at the Orpheum Theatre, they were just doing song after after song after song after song after song. And you got a little bit of sort of fatigue around what were clearly storytelling numbers, but we couldn't quite figure out what they were. And you were asking yourself, was this like a cut song from Rent? Was this like Superbia? What was this? And there is a cut song from the musical that would kind of evolve into Superbia. There's a cut song from Tick Tick Boom, and there was a song that was written prior to Rent that then made it into early versions, but ultimately didn't remain with the show. However, they each have really rich, interesting histories. For the most part, each of these songs comes from a completely different place. Some of them were written for friends, some of them were written with friends, some of them were intended to be standalone pop songs. And while we now get, like the briefest summary of the song and the name of the song projected onto that rear bit of cloth, we really, I think, still hunger for more information. And there's no reason why we couldn't lose one or two of the songs from the running time. And in order to create a little bit more space for the performers to pause in between. You know, in a perfect world, there'd be all of this documentary style footage of Jonathan Larson talking about all of these compositions. Very possibly you could interview his peers, his family members, his previous collaborators, but even at a minimum, you could script a little bit for the performers. And all it needs to be is, like, Jonathan would often write about this or the songs that you're about to hear and like a theme connecting the next few, because you can kind of group some of them together. Some of them are about artistic pursuits, some of them are about reckless, joyous abandon in the face of strife. Some of them are very politically minded. What I love about all of this music and the lyrics that he has written for it is the absolute point of view that he always articulated. And you realize what a profound loss it has been to the musical theatre community that we never got to hear. Like beyond Rent, all of the the utterly bizarre, abstract political stuff that he would have written subsequently. I'm so devastated that we never got to see the weird, anti establishment, politically driven musicals that Jonathan Larson undoubtedly would have been writing. And even in the pop stuff, his perspective comes through so powerfully. Whether he is writing about violence, whether he is writing about loneliness, whether he is writing about dystopian society, whether he is writing about resilience and love and life. All of this before we talk about his winning, utterly recognizable melodies, there are a couple of moments that feel really alongside the sound of Rent and Tick Tick Boom. You will recognize this as Jonathan Larson, but then there is also the more abstract stuff, Hosing the Furniture stands out for sounding nothing like any of the rest of this. You find yourself asking afterwards, what the hell was that? And how can I fit it into my existing understanding of Jonathan Larson and who he was? There is education that I think wants to happen here and people have a desire for more context around these songs or just more related information about Jonathan Larson's life. It doesn't have to introduce every single number, we just want to find out more. Anyway, the cast of brilliant talents are Max Harwood, Imelda Warren Greene, Marcus Collins, Natalie Cassanga and Michael Mather, and this cast has seemingly been assembled for their great vocals, of which I think Marcus Collins and Michael Mather probably have the most Jonathan Larson sound. But the standout performance may come from Imelda Warren Green, who has a couple of really sensational diva turns. Not only the manic energy that some will recognize from her performance in Kathy and Stella Solver Murder that she brings to Hosing the Furniture, but also somebody break out the Booze, which is this kind of sexy chanteuse, almost Jessica Rabbit kind of a number. But if Jessica Rabbit was sort of broke and fatalistic in the 1990s, meanwhile that song is a delicious and flirtatious menu of synonyms for drunk. And you know you can do a lot worse than An Evening at this show because to go there and get to hear these brilliantly well written songs, it is really satisfying. But I think you will crave a little more insight into each of them. So perhaps the best accompaniment to this is to read up on the songs. You can find this information online about this album and about this project, maybe discover what they each are beforehand because I did that in between seeing it off Broadway and seeing it in London, and my appreciation this time around was significantly increased. And the thing about great material is that you don't want to put anything in the way of that, you don't want to distract from it. And to that end, I have to address this conversation because a lot of audience members have been commenting on perceiving AI generated imagery in the video backdrop, which is wild because the video backdrop is really only providing background vibes. It isn't meant to be a distraction from anything that's happening on stage. From the set designed by Nate Bertone from the Movement directed by Taylor Walker. Each of these numbers is thoughtful and dynamic in its presentation. Why then, if it's true, which I suspect it is, I don't want to to say wholeheartedly because it is getting harder to recognize AI generated imagery, troublingly. But why would you create something like that on the backdrop, which flies in the face of so many of Jonathan Larson's own principles? It's really not at home in any piece of theatre, but especially in a show like this that has the ethos that this does. In any case, set your expectations in the right place given what this show actually is, but plenty to enjoy about the Jonathan Larson Project at Southwark Playhouse

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Mickey Jo

Next up, from one South Playhouse to another, this time South Playhouse Elephant, where I returned earlier this week to see the return of Rise the Cyclone. Now this is the UK professional premiere of the show, which was this, I believe, initially Canadian and then Off Broadway cult hit musical that achieved massive virality on TikTok and attained quite an online following. As such, its arrival at Southwark Playhouse in November of last year was hugely anticipated. The run was very successful and it is returning in triumph with many of the same company members, but some new exciting additions. Also, for those of you who saw it last time, a little bit of an evolution to the set brilliantly designed by Ryan Dawson late with regards to the positioning of the Amazing Karnak, who reigns over the entire thing, I'll explain momentarily what this show is about. For those of you who have no idea. Karnak now sits forward from the flat proscenium so is now visible from hopefully all of the seats within the auditorium, which is an interesting little space at Southwark Playhouse Elephant. It's sort of relatively recently opened and it's a surprising configuration because the room is wider than it is deep. It doesn't necessarily seem purpose designed for that many different theatrical productions, but they've been making it work and it matters a little less for a show like this in which the characters are characters by and large don't really leave the stage for 90 uninterrupted minutes. Here is what happens in Ride the Cyclone. It takes place in a purgatorial realm presided over by the Amazing Karnak, a carnival attraction who is capable of predicting the exact time and circumstances of one's death, including his own, and tells the audience at the beginning that he is going to die within the next hour or so, as a rat named Virgil has slowly been chewing through his power cable. One of my favourite early lines in the show that never seems to get the laugh that it deserves actually is since there is nothing more bass than death, I have decided that for this evening, Virgil shall play the bass anyway. Our principal cast of characters are the five members of the St Cassian Chamber Choir, who recently competed in a national competition and placed second despite being the only entrants in their category. Subsequently, they all visited the Amazing Karnak, who told them all to ride the Cyclone roller coaster, which they all did together. Unfortunately, a ride malfunction that sent them soaring from the tracks also meant that they perished together. Hence they find themselves waking up in a purgatorial realm. Whereupon they are told that one of them, not unlike in the musical cats, will have the opportunity to be reborn into a new possibility of existence. And they will each have an opportunity to sort of plead their case, which of course they do through song. So not unlike cats, but also not unlike six the Musical. It is a competition musical where we're going to get to know each of these characters in turn as they sing a solo song about themselves backed by the others. And I told you there were five. But that was something of a lie because at this point they are introduced to a sixth member, one who was decapitated during the accident and who was never claimed or recognized. And she is the somewhat morbid Jane Doe, who has the head of a doll and a beautiful singing voice, for what it's worth. Worth. She is played by Grace Galloway and performs the Ballad of Jane Doe, which was one of the more viral moments of the show on social media because of the way that it was originally staged and the impressive scale of the vocals. Lovely to hear. Contemporary musical theater written for classical vocal types for high soprano. The staging in this production, directed by Lizzie G. Isn't quite the same, but they still managed to do some impressive and eerie things. And what they really deliver on is the energy of all of these different musical numbers. Beginning with Ocean o' Connell Rosenberg's song as she sings what the world needs is People Like Me. Before she has yet really grasped the exact nature of this competition and how the winner will be decided, she sings a song about how obviously superior she is to all of the other members of the choir. Meanwhile, hers is the only song that obviously makes a case for her own resurrection, as everyone else sort of gets distracted by their own introspective thought processes. We next hear from Noel Gruber, who is introduced to to us as the most romantic boy in town. I should point out they all come from Saskatchewan, specifically Uranium City. And Noel, who is gay, has a lifelong, or should I say had a lifelong fascination with French cinema and the morose and ennui. And after this, things do not get less strange because we have Misha, who has immigrated to Canada from Ukraine, who sings about the affluent lifestyle that he wants to lead. He raps about it. Basically, it's a rap number which is interrupted by his own tender romantic feelings about his professed fiance Talia. Then you got Ricky, who sings about being a sexy space bachelor man and saving a planet of sexy cat people. And finally Constance, sweet Constance, who exists in something of a one sided best friendship With Ocean, with her feelings getting somewhat trampled on, repeatedly, she lands a strong emotional conclusion to the whole thing and the final choir member to perform and sings about how frustrated she was with the idea that people thought she was always going to live her entire life in this small town, that people never really got to know her, but always thought of her as very nice, and how the accident and flying through the air actually gave her this moment of crystallizing perspective about how it's okay that she loves her town, and it afforded her clarity and positivity. Surprisingly now the book, music and lyrics of Ride the Cyclone have been written by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell, and the style of each number is utterly distinct. It is best described as five or six different musicals that have been forced to stay in a room with each other for 90 minutes, and that I think is very satisfying from an audience perspective. Certainly the nature of these songs is going to keep you on your toes and they are each, like a said, very high energy in their delivery, brilliantly performed, well choreographed, they really land with a punch. They aren't necessarily utter home runs of musical theatre writing, they get very close, they're strongly written songs, but at no point in this show do I quite get all the way to like, oh, and that's one of the best musical theatre songs written in the last couple of decades. We probably get the closest with the Ballad of Jane Doe, but I never feel that we're all the way hitting it out of the park. The slightly bigger challenge with the show is just finding its feet at the very beginning, and for the most part it seems to be met by audiences who already enjoy and support this material, a consequence of which is that they cheer hugely for the songs. They get really excited for these characters. They don't necessarily laugh at every punch line because the jokes aren't always a surprise to them. I think some of the early pacing could absolutely be tightened. There are moments that I want to feel a little slicker and a little sharper. There are a few too many sections of just dead air. Now let me tell you about the company, old and new, performing this show. One of the new additions is Divina de Campo, drag superstar and musical theater performer who is playing the role of the amazing Karnak. And when this was announced, I was initially surprised because I didn't all the way see the vision. But Davina is so convincingly great at playing this slightly morbid robotic presence full of moral authority and this sort of wizard of Oz esque kind of of journey that Karnak goes on with Ocean trying to shape her into a better person who is more selfless is I think, really special when exacted by Davina Ocean. O' Connell Rosenberg, newly played by Kyna Montasillo, effortlessly belting right up there in the rafters sounds absolutely fantastic, but also has really honed this characterization of an obnoxious overachiever whose activism and whose generosity is absolutely performative. Josh Butler is also new and charmingly sardonic as Noel. I love his entire arc and journey through the show. Meanwhile, Bartek, Krichevsky, Robin Gilbertson, Jack Maverick and Grace Galloway are returning to the St. Cassian Chamber Choir, each of them in very impressive voice but also that little bit more realized in their cartoonish adolescent characterization since the first run a few months back, which makes each of their solo performances even more entertaining. I feel the same way about this show that I did about six when I was first seeing it and thinking oh well that one's a great number. Oh, but that one also has a great number and it is just song after song after song that they do such a brilliant job of putting across. It is an unusual plot admittedly, but like I said, not a million miles from a handful of other competition style musicals that we've seen before. It certainly I think appeals to a genzian millennial sense of humour. Pay attention to the book and the lyrics. There are some really brilliantly witty lines in there and for audiences of all ages, I think much to enjoy about Ride of the Cyclone. So now we begin the evening of back to back shows that I enjoyed last night at Soho Theatre, beginning with the brand new play Hitman Machine. Now this has been written by American screenwriter and playwright Jonathan Karan and directed by Daniel Bailey, recently associate director at the Bush Theatre in London and alongside Khalil Madovi. It auspiciously stars American stage and screen actors Noah Galvin and Josh Radner. The former you may know from screen projects like the Real o' Neills or Theatre Camp, as well as playing Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway. The latter you undoubtedly know for leading multiple seasons of the sitcom how I met YouTube mother. In this they play two brothers, each of whom are musicians, who used to write songs together during their childhood, largely as a way of coping during scenes of domestic abuse inflicted by their father on their mother. This being something that has left each brother with physical and emotional scars which neither of them have fully addressed in the decades since, with lingering questions and resentments bubbling up between the two of them them during this evening of reconnecting this because Alex, the younger of the two, played by Noah Galvin, a young composer and musician with a demonstrable amount of talent and wit, but who frequently gets in his own way because of his temper, because of his inability to collaborate, because of his close mindedness about the industry. He is visiting his older, significantly more successful brother, White, who has become something of a legend in the recording industry and who has now become a producer, championing artists and living with his family in a wildly sort of overwhelmingly expensive home, one which is the subject of much conversation. We see one particularly swanky room featuring an artistic lampshade and lined with two columns of framed gold and silver records. And the notion of this play is that these two brothers are coming back together and asking each other important recent questions. We find out why Alex engagement and relationship has failed. We find out where Wes family are. We find out why he's reluctant to help their mother with money for mortgage payments. We find out about each of their sort of updated relationships to their parents as adults. We find out about the state of their relationship. It's interesting watching them regress to some extent and the childhood versions of themselves that they turn back into while re examining each other in a new adult professional context. Alex trying to figure out exactly who Wes is now that he's this wildly successful producer. Wes trying to figure out if Alex is still the same challenging younger brother who's going to frustrate him immediately, which he very quickly seems to. It's a hugely funny performance from Noah Galvin, who renders his script just a series of punch lines. On one of the many occasions when Wes is kind of analyzing his younger brother's flaws. He tells him that he just resents popular music and mainstream music. To which Noah, as Alex, exuberantly replies, realize that's not true, I love Tracy Chapman. And then starts singing Fast Car every moment when he sings a few lines of something, whether it's that, whether it's Carly Rae Jepsen is so brilliantly funny, but there are also a lot of great occasions when he is coming up with a beat and he is layering sort of orchestrations and adjusting tempos in real time. And the two of them are collaborating on music in real time and coming up with lyrics and adjusting things. The play has an inherent and meaningful relationship to music, which has been composed jointly by a handful of individuals. Ben and CJ Harper have provided some of the composition, as has Khalil Madobe, who is also the third actor in the play who plays a rapper who goes by the pseudonym Defy. The full name is Defy the leader. But for some reason they keep pronouncing it defy like he's a washing machine. Anyway, we hear of his arrival while the two brothers are making calls. Conversation. And then he actually arrives to Wes's home, what feels like the next day. I'm not entirely sure structurally why this play couldn't take place over an entire evening. Like, Alex is getting ready to go to a meeting, one that Wes ultimately threatens to sabotage after trying to give him advice about how to navigate it. This because when Defi arrives, the two brothers, both, without meaning to necessarily end up pitching him different songs that he could use as a single for his upcoming album, as he tries to come out on the other side of some bad press relating to a public altercation. He punched a guy, basically. Anyway, in between the first half of the play and the second, Alex has been staying up all night working on songs. And there is one that he plays to define. The two of them clearly connect on a number of levels. Levels. And we see the frustration that this evokes in Wes. One, which I think can be amounted both to lingering tensions in his relationship with his younger brother, but also an increasingly jaded perspective on the music industry. He later confides that he can't compose. He can't get excited about songs anymore because he only hears what's wrong with them. And we have to wait a little while, I think, for Wes to really become a satisfying character and to entirely reveal his hand to us as the audience. We're waiting for pennies to drop the entire time, which never really do. It feels like there's something a little bit more to his characterization that we don't quite learn about. There is perhaps a sense of a strain in his marriage. There is an allusion to financial challenges. There is mention of rekindling his relationship with his father. All of this inflames conversation and ultimately physical confrontation with his brother. But it doesn't get fully discussed or explained. And so I do really enjoy Josh Radnor's performance in this. I think he is utterly convincing as an older brother. You really buy into this strained sibling relationship and the weight that he feels as though still carrying his younger brother on his back. But it's not nearly as flashy apart as Noah Galvin has, who really shines as the star of this. I think he's wonderful. I also seem to have enjoyed this a fair amount more than a bunch of other critics. And I think it is a very Off Broadway kind of a play. It's very New York. It's not as much about the actual things that happen, it's more so about the relationships. And, you know, they don't necessarily arrive at all that fulfilling a conclusion. We can infer things based on where it takes us. I don't know that the ending is quite right, I don't know that the pacing need be as drawn out as it is is, but it's one of those plays that manages to find both edge and meaning, especially in these conversations about the shared trauma of their past and the catharsis that they have each tried to find in life and in growth and in music. The way in which music is utilized and built and commented on. I find really fascinating that insight into the artist's process that we get to see here. And as well as all of that seriousness, it's a hysterically funny play as well. I found myself really laughing at this, particularly at the Star Turn by Noah Galvin. So though it is selling quite quickly given the names involved, I encourage you to go and check this one out for yourselves at the Soho Theatre.

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Mickey Jo

Finally, later that same Evening back in the very same auditorium, in fact, I once again had the chance to see Hull. Now, those of you who followed my coverage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 will already have heard me waxing lyrical about this wild new musical created by the theatre company American Sing Song. Consider that acronym for Just a Moment Moment. But Hole is a two person new musical that I think could take the world by storm and indeed depict the world being taken by storm. And it is certainly unconventional. We talked about Ride the Cyclone being an unusual premise. This makes that look like the King and I, because what it essentially is is a surprisingly heartfelt, queer coming of age story encircled by a narrative in which a sort of occult adjacent Christian community in Nebraska are instructed by their leader, Pastor Garth, to wear at all times wooden butt plugs. Yes, you heard me correctly this in response to his divine discovery that the anus is in fact the locus of sin and that God has plans to suck the less righteous from the surface of the earth in the great sucking, whipping them up into the sky via an almighty wind, whereupon they will burn to death on the face of the sun. So wooden butt plugs at all times, complicated by the emerging feelings of two young men in this community, one of them the pastor's son, the other his longest childhood friend. The two boys end up going on a journey, one which is both physical and emotional, and encounter other individuals, other groups who have interpreted this new world in different ways. And there's really not that much more that I can tell you you about this show, both because I don't want to, because you really need to be able to experience a lot of this afresh for yourself, and also because it does simply defy conventional description. It is so zany, it is so out there. But it succeeds because of how traditionally musical theatre it is at its core. Even though the events depicted are utterly ludicrous, it all makes enough emotional sense and there's a real clarity of storytelling. One of the really interesting things about this show show, which has had something of a slight enhancement aesthetically and in its presentation since I last saw it last summer, is that it isn't fully staged as such. You have the two writers also performing the thing multi rolling as each of these characters making you believe these relationships, whether these are mother, son, two best friends, strangers, whatever they are. Jake Brash, who also plays multiple different versions of keyboards, creating different different sounds as the character of the score shifts between gospel, somewhat sondheimy musical theatre, and also distinctly Elton John familiar pop ballads. There's a song that Sounds a little bit like, don't let the sun go down on me. You will know it when you hear it. And it is also the best song in the show. Buckle up for that one. Oh, how I wish I could tell you what the lyric is, but I truly just can't. Meanwhile, Nadia Leonard Hooper, who is just unfailingly committed to this storytelling with this just sheer focus and determination, while Jake is often bringing an awful lot of sweet sincerity alongside, Nadia is not playing instruments as such, but is doing live Foley sounds, which, if you don't know, is this practice of creating sound effects for films and such. And it is done so whimsically because it could be a little music box being turned via a dial. It could be a rotating wheel with, like, those sticks where one thing slides the other side. It goes like. But it's a rotation of them, so it sounds like a herd of sheep. It could be holding up a vegetable for Jake to crunch a bite out of. Because obviously there's a donkey in this show. And you know what? See it for her. If for no other reason, her work should be recognized. And I'm not going to spoil any more of the specificities of the Foley for you, but there's one gloriously musical theater thing that happens and another utterly unhinged use of. Of, I'm gonna say, personal technology in order to create a very specific sound. It is simply inspired all of the stuff they're doing. And indeed, the writing of the show feels like genius, but wildly unhinged, legitimately ridiculous genius. I mean, it is the perfect off West End, off Broadway fringe show, wherever you may encounter it over the next few months. It's exactly that kind of unexpected creativity. And it's going to surprise you, it's going to enchant you. It may even move you profoundly. Certainly it is going to make you laugh until you are hoarse. And if not hoarse, then at least donkey. That is a terrible joke. Theirs are significantly better. And in addition to mining perhaps not the right verb, the enduring comedy of the butt plug for 90 minutes. There are layers within this material that talk about religious cultism, that talk about queer communities, certainly coming of age, certainly coming to terms, terms with one's own identity in a space of indoctrination and shame. Aside from the comedy of the absurd premise, which goes an awfully long way, I think a tribute to the success and strength of the story actually being told here is that you feel it so emotionally, even though they aren't staging the entire thing, they're stood side by side at this sort of multi tier wooden desk with all of these bits and pieces on it. One which looks both like Noah's Ark and a spaceship for reasons that will all become apparent and has been designed for this production by Emmy Finkel. I will say Paige Seber's lighting design as well. Really brilliant at enhancing those emotional moments, but also the experience of listening to the whole thing is not unlike an audiobook or a radio play and you find yourself picturing and being able to vividly picture every scene as it is described, every new character who arrives and over the course of the thing it does paint some fascinating, unexpected images as it takes you on an even wilder ride than you're already imagining When I tell you one act Fringe musical about Butt plugs It's almost a year since I first saw this show. The subtle enhancements that have taken place in order to evolve it are all really brilliant, I think. But there's been such a respect for what this show is at its core and its ethos and its identity and what makes makes it unique and brilliant. It is running until the 1st of August at Soho Theatre. It is subsequently going to be at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Later in the year it's going to be at Playwrights Horizons, Off Broadway. Wherever you are in the world. If you are in proximity to any of those places, do yourself a favor. If this sounds at all like something you are willing to take a chance on, I promise you it is witty, it is silly, it is deceptively clever, it is wild. Go and see Hole and have a fantastic time. Those then have been my thoughts on all of these off West End shows. If any of them sound appealing to you, book yourself a ticket to go and see them. Support some theatre beyond the commercial West End of London. Of course, if you have seen any of these already, let me and everyone else know what you thought of them in the comments section down below. Below. Like I said, you can find more off West End reviews and more from me wherever you are seeing my face or hearing my voice. There are also more to come soon, so make sure you're subscribed with the notifications turned on or following me on podcast platforms, or staying up to date with absolutely everything I see and everything I share online by signing up to my free weekly email substack newsletter at the link in the description. For now though, thank you so much for listening to my thoughts about these. I have been Mickey, Joe and as always I hope that everyone is staying in safe and that you have a stagey day for 10 more seconds I'm Mickey. Joe Theater. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.

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Hey guys. Welcome to Giggly Squad, a place where we make fun of everything, but most importantly ourselves. I'm Paige desorbo. I'm Hannah Berner. Welcome to the squad. Giggly Squad started on Summer House when we were giggling during an inappropriate time. But of course we can't be managed, so we decided to start this podcast to continue giggling. We will make fun of pop culture news. We're watching fashion trends pep talks where we give advice, mental health moments and games and guests. Listen to Gigli Squad on Acast or wherever you get your podcasts.

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