Already Perfect – King’s Head Theatre, London

Book, Music and Lyrics: Levi Kreis

Director: Dave Solomon

Already Perfect has it all: an exhilarating storyline, brilliant dialogue, great music and stellar performances, and all directed with wit and imagination. It’s fresh, it’s funny, and above all, it’s profoundly moving.

Real-life Tony-award-winning actor and singer-songwriter, Levi Kreis, has taken his own near-tragic coming out story to fashion a deeply felt musical which speaks to us all about daring to confront the demons of one’s past.

Kreis plays a version of himself: a once-successful artist, struggling to stay sober. We first see him backstage after a lacklustre matinee. When a boyfriend texts, dumping him, Levi reaches for his hidden stash of drugs. Enter his long-term sponsor and friend, Ben, who encourages him to explore the talented adolescent he once was. But Already Perfect is far, far away from the fairy story that is It’s a Wonderful Life.

For a start, Levi has a dark past that no amount of angel dust will erase. And his friend’s self-destructive behaviour makes Ben see that there are issues that even the 12-step programme has failed to bring to the surface. As a last-ditch attempt, he suggests Levi go back to the keyboard and start singing. It was creating music which was once transformational for Levi. Why is he refusing to approach it now?

Levi, birth name Matthew, was raised a strict Baptist in Tennessee. Part of the magic of the show is in the appearance of Matthew himself. Killian Thomas Lefevre plays him at first with swagger, and then with moving earnestness as the teenager commits to conversion therapy in a desperate effort to rid himself of his homosexual feelings.

Later, he will embody Levi/Matthew’s weary self-disgust of disillusionment. Beautifully lean scenes – there’s nothing wasted in the writing – give glimpses of significant moments along the way. There’s the inevitable homophobic bullying, but worse is the brutal rejection by Matthew’s father. And there’s more to come. But the sheer almost-angelic goodness of Matthew shines through in heartbreaking scenes, first with his guidance counsellor and then with Cody, the young man who agrees to pray with Matthew in the dark hours of temptation.

Yiftach ‘Iffy’ Mizrahi stays quietly in the background as the introverted Ben, but called upon in the moment to improvise an array of characters in Matthew/Levi’s past, he gradually emerges in a new light even to himself. He rootles through the suggestive dressing-room closet (‘Is there a Safe Word?’ he asks nervously) and metamorphoses variously as a sexy preacher man, a bottle-bottomed-spectacle-wearing counsellor, and a sinister Hollywood porn movie maker. But most movingly – and shockingly – he plays Matthew’s first love. There is a powerful erotic charge as the two young men kneel, praying earnestly, seeking to sublimate their lustful feelings for one another.

Matthew’s rejection of conversion therapy doesn’t result in a joyous embrace of his sexuality. Instead, Already Perfect charts his downward spiral through drugs and sex work, which rush in to fill the void. Why, the adult Levi asks, was he always attracted to men who abused him?

Levi himself is magnificent. There is no hint of self-indulgence as his onstage persona explores the terrors and pain of his past. And above all, he’s a fabulous singer and songwriter. His songs in Already Perfect are created from his background in gospel, soul and roots, and each one enchants. They include All I Want to Be is Me, Deliver Me and the stand-out title song, which offers the hard-won message ‘You’ve nothing to prove, you’re already perfect’.

There’s an ingenious set by Jason Ardizzone-West, an appealing band led by arranger and orchestrator Matthew Antonio Perri, and tight, imaginative direction by Dave Solomon.

Runs until 15 February 2026