Writer and Director: Chris Burgess
Is a peppy musical the best vehicle to tell the story of a man battling motor neurone disease? Well, there are certainly darker musicals out there, but the songs in Chris Burgess’s show – all in a musical theatre style – are just not strong enough to tell such a vital narrative.
Supersonic Man is loosely based on Peter Scott Morgan who, when diagnosed with MND, took on the medical system. Doctors were looking for cures rather than finding ways to help people living with the disease to have a better life. In an attempt to publicise his fight, Morgan was the star of a critically-acclaimed documentary Peter: The Human Cyborg. After radical surgery and his use of robotics to take the place of his wasting muscles, Morgan called himself a human cyborg.
In real life, Morgan was an expert in robotics, the first to receive a doctorate in the subject from a British university. However, in Supersonic Man, the protagonist is called Adam and is a flighty gay man living in Brighton, making his living writing risqué columns for a local newspaper. His boyfriend Darryl is a geography teacher.
After the first song – a lively hymn to partying and working out at the gym – Burgess gets straight down to business when Adam tells Darryl that he can’t feel his toes. Very quickly, Adam moves from crutches to wheelchair. He is given two years to live. Darryl ticks off the various responses that a death sentence is supposed to produce: denial, anger, bargaining.
However, the songs add little to this tale of resilience and strength, especially when they all sound so similar. The title number is a letdown, and only the catchy Beyond Stephen Hawking stands out. It’s a song discussing how medical science has moved on since Hawking’s death and might have served as a better, if provocative, title for the musical.
There are comedy songs about boffins and TV producers all complete with silly Broadway-lite dance routines. While they bring some levity to the proceedings, they all seem a little cheap and amateur. The lyrics probably could do with some refining, too. Apart from the rather wonderful rhyming of Agadir and Brighton Pier, all the other rhymes are fairly basic.
Fortunately, Dylan Aiello’s Adam is a complex character, neither hero nor victim. He is self-obsessed, difficult and charming. There is also good work from Dominic Sullivan who plays his very English boyfriend, although he is less carefully drawn. Support comes from James Lowrie, Jude St. James and Mali Wen Davies who all play a variety of roles, but there’s a sense that Supersonic Man would benefit from being streamlined into a more serious two-hander.
Runs until 3 May 2025
The Reviews Hub Score
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