Writer, Music and Lyrics: Rob Gathercole
Director: Andrew Beckett
From Rob Gathercole, comes the whimsical, unauthorised musical parody of the mega-hit TV show Breaking Bad, Faking Bad the ‘Methsical’. This is Gathercole’s only second musical offering and the first to be premiered in London.
Gathercole is a writer, actor and musician and here he shows his talent as a joyously talented comedic actor and writer, generously leaving the musical skills, and the lead, to others but he still shines as the production’s star.
This generosity pays off as what he has produced is something that is riotous, rude and stupendously silly. Walter White, is played superbly by Richard Costello, His skills in comedy, acting and playing the guitar, from Rock to Country and Western are put to use for maximum effect. His sultry deep-toned voice is one eBooks would kill for. Costello is the thread that holds this production together, and, indeed, he is more fun to watch than the TV series Lee Cranston in this role
The musical starts where the TV series does with Walter White, an underpaid Chemistry school teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico, turning 50 and finding out that he has stage three cancer. Unable to come up with the funds for treatment he coincidently is invited out on a drugs raid by his brother-in-law, one of the parts played by Gathercole. There he spies one of his ex-pupils whom he then bribes to allow them to go into partnership in cooking meth. Drug dealing, general criminality, money laundering and murderous mayhem then ensue.
The absurdity of the original plot that audiences fell in love with in their droves back when it first aired 15 years ago, and then a new audience during lockdown, is really driven home in this super condensed version as the first two seasons are tackled in 60 minutes before the interval. This musical just adds to this absurdity but sends it up further with the most silly and juvenile humour from ditty dance moves to playful jibes and avalanche of non-stop riotous ridiculousness. The musical is not just packed full of puns but rammed with foot-tapping hummable musical numbers, the most memorable being the full ensemble numbers.
Joining Gathercole is the ex-pupil turned drug dealer Jesse Nikki Biddington who is most enjoyable playing this part from her other roles and Nathalie Winsor who unfortunately, apart from Walt’s wife, Skyler, gets to play a few of the gangsters whose characters in this production are, well, rather annoying to be fair. When Winsor is on stage as Skyler she is upstaged by Gathercole playing their children as puppets, which is, again to be fair, hilarious. All of this is accompanied by live keyboards and a faceless sound narrator who explains to the audience, who have probably lost track in all the mayhem, quite where they are at.
And here comes the, however. The speed at which the production crashes through the first two series is hard to keep up even if you have seen the TV show. After the interval comes series three, which the ethereal narrator says is not worth watching so is condensed into a hilariously and brilliantly fun and funny five-minute puppet shadow theatre harking back to the old Midwest, a ploy used again for a train robbery by condensing it down to a short silent comedy film of the same era; brilliant. Overall though this is a musical masterpiece in tomfoolery
Runs until28 October 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Stupendously Silly
