Edges – Assembly Rooms, Music Hall

This was – Some very fine singing, but ultimately indecipherable and unrelatable!

A production from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Edges, the blurb reads: a Musical from the creators of The Greatest Showman, La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen, Edges is a contemporary song-cycle which explores universal issues such as love, commitment, identity, and meaning. Well, great! As a big fan of all of those production, this sounds perfect, I was looking forward to this one.

What a let down! This is maybe sounding and looking great and making perfect sense if you are a 20-something angst-ridden American female living in New York City. And I am probably sounding very old and very male now.

A bright young thing launches into, Am I fulfilled.

Do I care?

A production that, on paper, has everything going for it; a great central venue, a publicity machine, a beautiful stage, an amazing sound system, scenery, props a live band!   Comfy seats! And four fantastic young singers. What could possibly go wrong? Well, let’s start with a total lack of storyline, plot or character development. Without any of those fundamentals, no one in the audience is going to care. We are just watching and not caring, and what is the point of that?

In a festival of so many shoestring productions, in tiny, impractical venues with no sound systems or sight lines or ventilation even, you can see why I am angst -ridden.

This is certainly not a criticism of Taylor Frisina, Sophia Holmes, Claire Rob or Lauren Troy who are all fantastic. I did actually enjoy pockets of this! I enjoyed Frisina’s nerdy song about ‘a car that has jet wings’ and the quirky upbeat number about Facebook with its goofy, Pythonesque turns, like Friends meets Spamalot. The song ’I’ve got to run’ was nicely sung and acted by Troy and clever, it certainly made me chuckle. Likewise, the duet between the two sisters was sweet and believable.

As someone mutters whilst we shuffle out, ‘they would have been great in Legally Blonde’!

Running time – 1Hr 20mins

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 8th August 2023

North West End UK Rating: