Photo: Hector Rodríguez
Everything about Valen Shore and Alison Zatta’s musical looking back at 90s boyband NSync is quirkily eccentric. Even the title is a tongue-twister! This is a show that oozes nostalgia, while offering a commentary on the meteoric rise to fame of some very young guys, and their subsequent sudden break-up. It’s Christmas Eve 2009, seven years after Justin Timberlake decided to pursue a solo career and NSync was said to be “on hiatus”. The band’s founder Kirkpatrick (Valen Shore) waits in a queue in a Hollywood coffee shop, still recognised by fans. He wistfully sings that he used to be on MTV as he continues his long wait for Timberlake (NIcole Wyland) to call him to get the band back together for a reunion tour. Every year he meets up with the three other members of the band – Lance (Riley Rose Critchlow), Joey (Elizabeth Ho) and JC (Mia-Carina Mollicone) – but Kirkpatrick is the only one who still believes that Timberlake, now an international and somewhat smug superstar, will ever show up. Along comes the spirit of Marky Mark/Mark Wahlberg (Alison Zatta) to guide Kirkpatrick through the high and low points in the band’s history and also make him face some home truths. Not least that he needs to move on and reinvent himself, as Wahlberg did by dropping the hip-hop persona to focus on acting. Along the way, the show highlights the negative aspects of the music industry (not least the band being defrauded of much of their income by their manager, Lou Pearlman) and the dangers of living in the past.
Taking themes from A Christmas Carol and A Wonderful Life, this show is a joyous love letter to the boyband. The all-female cast, with their drawn-on beards and sideways baseball caps, beautifully embody the parade of characters, with most of the cast effortlessly and energetically playing multiple roles. The choreography is the classic, cheesy dance moves of the quintessential boyband. The songs are all original, since it was, as acknowledged in the show, nigh-on impossible to get permission to use the band’s actual music So Shore and Zatta have created a mash-up of 90s pop and musical theatre, full of amusing lyrics that expand and advance the narrative. The prodigiously talented cast are credible and charismatic, all with excellent singing voices and acting chops.
Having played to great success at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, the show has now transferred to the Seven Dials Playhouse for a well-deserved London Christmas season. It’s silly, enjoyable, full of heart – a lovingly crafted and original homage to the phenomenon of the boyband.
Chriskirkpatrickmas: A BoyBand Christmas Musical is at the Seven Dials Playhouse until 30 December. Tickets are available from: https://www.sevendialsplayhouse.co.uk/
Reviewer: Carole Gordon
Reviewed: 5th December 2023
North West End UK Rating:
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