Stock Aitken and Waterman deliver an ‘evening of pure fun’
I Should Be So Lucky King’s Theatre, Glasgow JJJ Vigil Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh JJJJ
It’s a high bar to leap; but the Stock Aitken Waterman musical I Should Be So Lucky, currently on tour around the UK and Ireland, may well have the most silly and feather-light plot ever seen on the tribute musical stage. As the show opens, our lovely heroine Ella (the totally beguiling Luciemae Sumner) is waking up on her wedding day, and happily singing I Should Be So Lucky and swigging prosecco with her bridesmaids, as she prepares for the big day.
Meanwhile, though, her fiancé Nathan is round at the care home visiting his grandad, who blurts out a confused tale about a long-gone affair; and instead of sorting out truth from mixed-up memory, a shocked Nathan instead flees from the church, leaving Ella standing at the altar. Cue much indignation from Ella’s bridesmaids, gay best friend, mum and grandma - and an immediate decision to head off for a no-holds-barred group holiday at the luxury lovers’ resort in Turkey which Nathan had booked for the honeymoon.
If the plot line is well-worn, though the fragility of the setup barely matters in writerdirector Debbie Isitt’s rollicking script, as the story of Ella and friends on the razzle in Turkey begin to unfold amid avalanches of pink, blue and sparkly design by Tom Rogers, and torrents of terrific Stock, Aitken and Waterman pop numbers, from the title song, through Respectable and Toy Boy, to Never Gonna Give You Up.
Amid a crazy maelstrom of hot-air balloon trips, yacht rides across to Greece, handsome tour guides, unlikely romances, and pep talks from Kylie herself, who appears in video form in Ella’s mirror, the story ends like a Shakespeare comedy, with weddings all round, and the audience singing along in full voice to every joyful hits. And if the coast between Turkey and Greece has lately been the scene of some of the world’s most distressing and sometimes fatal refugee journeys, I Should Be So Lucky is not the show to remind you of that; or to give you anything but an evening of pure fun.
The contrast could hardly be more marked, between I Should Be So Lucky and Bristol company Mechanimal’s brief show Vigil, which visited the Traverse this weekend after a successful Fringe run back in 2019. Created and performed by Tom Bailey, the 45 minute show begins in light-touch style, as the names of animal, bird and insect species appear on the big screen at the back of the stage, and Bailey entertains us by imitating each species.
At one point, the game even gets a little silly, with slightly rude names appearing; but then - with the tale of the nearextinct Penitent Mussel - the mood suddenly darkens. In a burst of anger or grief, Bailey opens the transparent box of animal bones that sits centre stage, and scatters them in front of us; the names of lost or vanishing species flick past ever faster on the screen, and we hear the breaking voices of Greta Thunberg and a leading zoologist trying to raise awareness of the huge extinction through which we are living, with an estimated 200 species now being lost every day.
Gunfire rings out, in Andrew Cooke’s powerful sound design, and the crackle of fire; slides zoom out to show us the evergrowing list of the lost, like the countless names on some huge war memorial. Meanwhile, Bailey lights little candles, of mourning or remembrance; and by the end of the show there is no more laughter only grief, and a deep sense of responsibility for a loss too vast to measure, far less to understand.
I Should Be So Lucky at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 30 April-4 May; Vigil, run completed.