Wrong...But You're Getting Warmer
Hot Mess (The Other Palace, Victoria, London)
Once in a while, I will go and watch a play I know practically nothing about before I see it, finding out as little as possible before it begins. Such an approach is, of course, very high-risk: you might incorrectly think, for instance, that The Iceman Cometh is about a superhero or that The Play That Goes Wrong is supposed to have some funny bits in it.
It's a risk worth taking occasionally, though, and this was one of those experiments. All I knew was that the reviews had been very good and that it was somehow a musical about the doomed live affair between the Earth and Humanity. Did this mean that I was about to see a musical about the detail of evolution?
Well, for the first song, that's more or less what I got, as Danielle Steers' faultless Earth (yes, she's a planet. Do keep up) sings of her attraction to unicellular life forms, then fish and then dinosaurs. When, later on, Humanity - here shortened to 'Hugh' - discovers a fossilised T-Rex, the Earth dismisses it as an 'old flame'.
On the night I came to see it, Humanity was played by Nathan Shaw, covering for Morgan Gregory with such panache that you'd never know he wasn't the regular first choice. The pair had a real electricity between them and got as sexy as you can get while still remaining partially clothed - top marks for intimacy director Lex Caby.
But, of course, it's all set to end in tears as greenhouse gases behin build up and Humanity sneaks off to get a bit more intimate with the moon ('It's not even a planet!') in '69.
The ending is horribly dark, but also hilarious: they are lovers no more: she's getting it on with an AI bot and he's trying to convince himself that the affair with his current squeeze, Mars, is just as fulfilling, despite it having no breathable atmosphere no flora, no fauna, being forced to live underground etc. So Elon Musk wins twice. Not good.
I loved this show. Hot? Absolutely! A mess? Never.