Away From Home is a varied cabaret line-up by a cheerful bunch of Musical Theatre graduates from London’s Mountview Academy. They finished their MA a couple of years ago and have reunited for this joyous evening of songs and stories at the back-of-a-pub Golden Goose Theatre. Their generous take on the theme of home expands to include places, people, language, culture and food. Between them, these young performers represent a dozen different countries, and their harmonious, inclusive, international approach to identity is an excellent antidote to the narrow-minded divisiveness infecting contemporary life.
The programme kicks off with Mikki Villa from the Philippines. Charming and funny, he is the ideal opening act. After living in Manila and Hong Kong, he is one of many performers drawn to London’s musical theatres and drama schools like a moth to a flame, leaving behind a lover but bringing his beloved rice machine. His Miss Saigon mash-up, parodically sung to the rice cooker he brought with him, lets the audience know they’re in for a great night’s entertainment.
The show is co-produced by Norwegian performer Guro Elvethon and her friend Sarah O’Neill from Brisbane, who expertly operates the sound and lighting. Elvethon is a warm MC for the evening’s gifts, and her rendition of a Norwegian song called I’ve Never Seen A Moose is one of the highlights. Heading back soon to Norway, she tallies up the things she’ll rediscover there and the things she’ll remember about London (I’ll miss Greggs”).
There is skilful keyboard accompaniment by Livs Needham, a talented, hard-working musician and musical director, who can turn her hand to numerous different genres. There’s a Britain’s-Got-Talent-style energy about these accomplished singers giving full-hearted performances, flavoured with conflicted nostalgia for the past and starry-eyed hope for the future.
Accompanying herself on guitar, there’s a bluegrassy number by Shelbi Forrest from Nashville. Forrest has written a feminist musical set in small-town Tennessee called She’s Got Grits! She performs two original songs from the show, movingly referencing her grandmother’s death and baking legacy and her own ambivalent feelings about home. Dressed in denim and cowboy boots, she subverts the classic all-American vibe with a nuanced take on her native country.
Emily Doving, from the US and Switzerland, complicates the notion of home still further. “I grew up moving around a lot,” she says, so when people ask, “Where is home?” she is often at a loss. “Maybe it’s the UK now?” She brings power-ballad energy to the intimate stage with Some Things Are Meant To Be.
Next up is Ivi Moravcova, originally from the Czech Republic, who sings a plangent Czech song, Bozhe Moi, about homesickness, whose chorus she translates as “Oh my God, I want to go back”. She is an accomplished performer, very much at home in her own international identity. Smiling widely and warmly, she tells us: “I love being Slavic” in a riff that ends: “my grandmother looks like she wants to kill you.” British-Lithuanian performer Nida Savage channels Adele, one of several barnstorming covers. Eleri Edwards from Pembrokeshire is another heartfelt singer.
There’s plenty of original material here, too. Leonardo Stickley reads a moving poem, “Grey and Green”, about visiting Northern Ireland with his dad, who is from Derry, and sings an even more poignant song about transformational lost love. Shauna Langford Hopkins from Pontypridd sings beautifully in Welsh and has written about growing up in South Wales with four older brothers.
Away From Home is more than a musical showcase. It brings together disparate family experiences and life stories from around the globe: war and emigration, starting again in a new country, divorce, death and memory. These stars of the future are thoughtful and mutually supportive. It’s enough to give the audience hope.
Reviewed on 26 March 2026
