JADAR

The Choir of Man, one of the most successful shows to come out of Edinburgh Fringe, has now embarked on a UKIE tour, direct from the West End.

The Choir of Man follows a pub choir in a pub called The Jungle. There isn’t much of a narrative. One of the characters guides us along, introduces us to his friends, and preaches love and acceptance, but the plot never really goes anywhere. The second act is more exposition heavy, delving more into the characters and fleshing them out.

The actors play heightened, fictional versions of themselves, blurred with archetypes, for example, “The Joker”. This works quite well but is a little awkward for the guy revealed to be in a bisexual open relationship if this is not really true. Further, the first act offers nuggets of information, such as The Romantic, a gay guy, being secretive about his love life, but it does absolutely nothing with this information, which feels like a tease. There is great diversity but the characters are mostly written and performed quite stereotypically (even nicknamed after archetypes), save for the gay guy not being effeminate – but then this suggests he only fits in with these lads because he’s straight-passing, albeit “The Romantic”.

The show is essentially made up of a series of vignettes, which is thin and schmaltzy. It feels largely like a song cycle for the sake of it, with most of the songs (admittedly, a great mix of genres, even traditional folk songs, and a mix of obvious and surprising choices) appearing to have been selected at random (or because they will obviously work well in a jukebox musical) rather than revealing the characters’ inner lives or moving the narrative forward.

The play explores lots of interesting themes but never in much detail. It’s all very surface level and lacking in depth, even though there is a lot of heart, particularly in the second act. It’s a refreshing portrayal of positive masculinity but there is a real missed opportunity in not interrogating masculinity. The show is undeniably heart-warming, and at times emotional and powerful, but this can become sentimental and saccharine.

The show is very enjoyable, and you have to enjoy it for what it is. It’s a fringe show. But, admittedly, it did play the West End and charged high prices. I would probably have appreciated the show more at a fringe venue – or better yet, an actual pub.

The production is very well designed but the best part of the show is all the immersive elements, from interacting with the audience, even bringing people onstage, to the singalongs. Early on, they brought an old lady onstage and serenaded her with Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’, which was pretty hilarious, especially the age-related lyrics.

The pub feels microcosmic for society but the immersion allows the audience to become part of the community. Audiences can even get a beer (or an alcohol-free beer!) onstage before the show or during the interval. I do wonder, however, how fun the show would be without these immersive elements. Is it relying too heavily on them to make up for a paper-thin plot that addresses important themes without adequately exploring them?

The tour has been given an arguably unnecessary interval, which is probably to garner more drinks sales. However, the immersive act 2 pre-show, with audience members still onstage, was great fun.

The actual reason why the show went on too long was the extended curtain call. The main show ended with Fun’s ‘Some Nights’ before somebody told us that there are five local choirs in the audience (they do this every opening night), with whom they sang Sia’s ‘Chandelier’, which was featured earlier on in the show. They then finally said goodbye with folk song ‘The Parting Glass’. It went on too long. I wonder if structurally and tonally it might work better to go straight into ‘The Parting Glass’ and then break character and bid farewell with the local choir number.

Heartfelt and feel-good but surface-level, The Choir of Man is makes up for its paper-thin narrative and soft approach to important issues with tremendous talent performing terrific tracks with lots of heart.

The Choir of Man runs at Opera House Manchester until May 9 and is currently touring the UK and Ireland until December 5, with more dates to be announced.

Photo: Mark Senior