Writer and Director: Arthur Hull
Arthur Hull’s engaging 60-minute comedy musical cabaret makes a welcome stop in London ahead of a UK tour and an extended outing at Edinburgh Fringe. The format, a whimsical celebration of the best songs from some of the most notorious Broadway and West End musical failures, was tried before by an ensemble team at Crazy Coqs back in 2022. This iteration features just Hull and two keyboards, offering a welcome opportunity to hear a range of styles from a top-notch talent who is clearly enamoured of the entire musical theatre genre.
“I know you might think it’s a piss take”, Hull warns us up front; but manifestly it is not. This is a performer clearly in love with Broadway, genuinely trying to work out why shows fail, and why duds ever get made in the first place.
Hull gives himself plenty of leeway in his choice of songs by defining flops as either “financial, critical, or theatrical” failures, the latter something of a subjective term. One of the songs is from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s mega-hit Cats, its inclusion accounted for by the critical mauling given to Tom Hooper’s disastrous film version. Another is from the hit The Producers, its inclusion because the show celebrates a musical that should never have been made. Still, there are plenty of enjoyably obscure selections from musicals that are, rightly or otherwise, “lost, forgotten, or misunderstood”.
The $8m disaster Carrie: The Musical, based on Stephen King’s debut novel, ran for just five performances back in 1988 before succumbing to near-universal critical contempt. Hull performs the original choreography to the opening number, based on a jazzed-up fitness routine, leaving one wondering how the show ever made it out of previews. Premiering on the Great White Way in 1937, Rodgers and Hart’s Babes in Arms had one of the ricketiest books in theatrical history but at least gave birth to some of the most iconic songs in the entire canon. Hull, who has a stand-out ability to extend a note beyond what seems physically possible, delivers a hauntingly smoky version of My Funny Valentine.
Other highlights include a ditty from Moby Dick! The Musical, “it’s a whale of a tale,” the lyric tells us and the one redeeming number from the 2013 clunker, King Kong. We also get a truly cringe-worthy selection from Diana: The Musical, “the first ever show to have one-star reviews before it opened”, Hull tells us, and a stonkingly politically incorrect number from the much-unloved Grease 2.
The press night audience, “definitely a musical theatre crowd”, Hull guesses correctly, is particularly well informed about some of the worst belly-ups in history. Still, there is much here for even the most casual of musical-goers. Enormous fun.
Reviewed on 21 July 2026 and continues to tour
