Love Actually has become a regular Christmas movie appearing on our television screens every year, and so the timing of the Australian premiere of Love Actually? The Musical Parody in the weeks leading up to Christmas would seem perfect.
In this parody version, both the book and lyrics are written by Bob & Tobly McSmith, with music by Basil Winterbottom. For theatre lovers there’s some clever references to Sweeney Todd‘s Johanna, Hamilton‘s King George and some Bob Fosse style choreography. For movie lovers there is quite an array of references to the many other feature films the original actors of Love Actually appeared in – such as Notting Hill, Taken and Harry Potter to name just a few.
If ever there was a Christmas movie worthy of being parodied, it’s Love Actually: the huge cast of celebrities with their multiple story lines all seemingly interwoven in some obscure way, where love is complicated but seems to all work out rather neatly at Christmas – at least for most of the characters.
Love Actually? The Musical Parody takes the audience through a parodied version of the film – with characters introducing themselves as the actor who portrayed the character in the film, rather than the character themselves. Whilst costumes and wigs help to identify each character, this direct naming avoids any confusion – unless you had never seen the movie, in which case you’re probably going to be completely lost.
While Love Actually (the movie) featured a soundtrack of well known hits, Love Actually? The Musical Parody contains new original songs. Unfortunately the sound balance wasn’t quite right for the opening songs and some of lyrics couldn’t be heard clearly over the backing music. Hopefully this is rectified for future performances.
A cast of six hardworking performers – Ian Andrew, Mitchell Groves, Belinda Jenkin, Sophie Loughran, Jeremy Harland and Massimo Zuccara – pull off every key character in the movie, as well moving set pieces on and off stage. However, the show doesn’t transition seamlessly and there were some awkward endings to scenes. Perhaps the writers had anticipated laughter in the those moments that would have covered the somewhat abrupt exit of cast offstage? While there were certainly some hilarious moments, there were also too many moments that fell flat and at times the parody felt more like an awkward mocking of the original actors rather than the characters they were portraying.
The original movie had a run time of 130 minutes, and while Love Actually? The Musical Parody was advertised as having a run time of 90 minutes, the actual performance was around 105 minutes. With no interval, it was a long time to sit in the Athenaeum Theatre’s limited leg room seating. Certainly, elements of the movie had been omitted or trimmed to suit the stage presentation, but the addition of musical numbers then added to the runtime.
The die hard fans of Love Actually, will no doubt enjoy Love Actually? The Musical Parody, and it’s probably best suited as a Christmas outing for a group of similar-minded friends after a few drinks.
Love Actually? The Musical Parody is now playing at the Athenaeum Theatre, in Melbourne’s East End Theatre District as part of the Christmas Showtime Festival.
