The Great British Bake Off Musical ★★★★
Noel Coward Theatre, London
Residents of London get ready. Every aunty you haven’t seen in years is about to start deep liking your Insta. Your neon harness is getting more thumbs up than you did that one night in Mykonos. It’s not because you are their favourite niece/nephew/nibling. The aunties are getting ready. They are buttering you up. The aunties are planning a visit. They heard it before you. The Great British Bake Off Musical is premiering. It’s a dream crumb true, ahem. The aunties are gonna buy tickets faster than the Beyhive does for Beyonce. Based on last night’s disarmingly heartwarming, happy clappy and innuendo-laden pun fest suggest they get you one too.
Of course, it’s predictable. Like your favourite cake recipe. It has all the ingredients you love. It revels in the format of the show. The contestants are a sprinkling of contemporary Britain at its sugar-coated best. There is the recently bereaved carer, the widowed dad, the Italian with their Nonna’s secret recipes, the vegan bearded hipster who lives on a canal boat in Hackney, the fussily camp engineer with the zesty waistcoats, the gratingly camera-ready influencer, the throaty cockney grandma and the young refugee from Syria (via Wembley). At the helm of the show are two inescapably familiar celebrity cooks. A blue-eyed mischievous scouser called Phil Hollinghurst (John Owen-Jones) and the aristocratic dowager Pam Lee (Haydn Gwynne) who has a bold taste in neon jewellery. If you can’t guess who they are supposed to be, this is the wrong musical for you.
Folded into the knockout rounds of signature bakes, technical challenges, and showstoppers are the backstories that will melt the butter in your batter. Each of them brings their own little flavour with a personalised solo telling you why the opportunity to be on the show is so important to them. All the losses, hopes and dreams that have brought them to the gingham hunger games.
The show is at its most infectious fun in its ensemble choruses. Rousing applause catchers from the whole cast and the audience quickly ingests. They are the vehicle for the show’s two main hooks, optimism that’s as warm as slippers and the Great British Double Entendre. Showstopper awards goes to Slap It Like That, a fruity rallying cry that will stiffen your dough whenever you knead it.
Performances are hearty with Gwynne as the lushly tart Lee has some great lines, a big voice and surprisingly spry moves hidden under the Harvey Nicks shift dress. Some editing is needed to remove filler scenes and address missteps in continuity in the subplots (for instance when the sharp-elbowed influencer tries to sabotage its swept away faster than dirty cutlery at The Ritz). But if you are a Bake Off fan we know you can forgive the occasional soggy bottom.
The Great British Bake Off Musical is a big smothering hug of a show. Cynicism is suspended for the full two hours. Your wise aunties have had their share of life’s hard lessons. Tea and sympathy are never overrated. Listen to them, life is what you bake it.
Also starring Zoe Birkett, Michael Cahill, Damian Humbley, Claire Moore, Jay Saighal, Scott Paige & Aharon Rayner
Written by Jake Brunger & Pippa Cleary and directed by Rachel Kavanaugh
Review by ANDREW HEBDENQueerguru Contributing Editor ANDREW HEBDEN is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing, and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement, he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre, and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.
