Mickey Jo (0:00)

Honestly, never mind the fact that I have still never seen fully staged productions of A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park With George or West side Story. I have now instead seen Pacific Overtures, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, two separate productions of Roadshow, Here We Are and now the Frogs. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm a professional theatre critic here on social media and today we are going to be talking all about the brand new production of the musical the Frogs, which has just opened at Southwark Playhouse Borough in London. This is one of the more infrequently staged musicals featuring a score by Stephen Sondheim. Although I say that the more infrequently staged musicals are the only ones that we seem to get recently in London, this production being produced by the same theatre company who staged Anyone Can Whistle at the Venue just a few years ago, and as well as a score by theatrical giant and genius composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, it features an original book by Bert Shevlov. Shevlov. I'm just realizing for the first time as I say this that I've never actually heard that name pronounced out loud. Shevalov in any case, with revisions and additions to the material by Nathan Lane, made in the early 2000s years after the show first premiered at a particularly unusual setting, not only because it was created for an academic theatrical context for Yale, as in Yale University, as in the Yale Drama Program, but also specifically it was staged in and around their swimming pool, which answers many of the questions about the show's puzzling structure. But we'll get on to that. There is plenty to be said about the Frogs. This was my first real experience of the show, and we're going to talk about the plot, but also about this particular production, also about the material and the performances of this cast. So stay tuned. In the meantime, if you have already been to see this production, or if you have any memories from productions from years past, I would love to hear about them in the comments section down below. If you had the chance to see this on Broadway, perhaps in the early 2000s, or maybe even at Yale, maybe we'll uncover some real treasures here. Let us know where and when you have seen the Frogs. In the meantime, if you enjoy this review. As always, make sure that you're subscribed here on YouTube. Turn on those notifications so you don't miss any of my upcoming videos or give me a follow on podcast platforms. But before I ribbit on too much, here is what I thought of the Frogs. So I've been reading up on the history of the show because I've been very intrigued by it, and Sondheim has an uncharacteristically little amount to say about the material and about his lyrics. In his Collected Book of Lyrics, AKA Finishing the Hat, which is sitting just over there on the shelf behind me, he has plenty to say about the circumstances of this first production, the regrets that he has about creating it for this academic world and working in that environment, which it appears was incredibly frustrating for him in then the earlier years of his career. But fast forward to the early 2000s. Nathan Lane reworked the book to this with a lot of his signature flair in the early years after the Producers, which I think can be felt hugely in this. I mean, the Producers was a huge juggernaut, a huge moment for Nathan Lane's Broadway career was still playing very successfully when the Frogs opened at Lincoln Center. And before I tell you more about the suspicious and largely coincidental parallels with the Producers as a show, it's worth pointing out that a lot of the concept behind the Frogs is that you have this leading character of Dionysus. This, by the way, is all based on an original play by Aristophanes that was written some two and a half thousand years ago. Talk about a classic. And Dionysus, the God of wine and revelry, but also of the theater, despairs for humanity and for civilis and the very put upon society of Athens. And he believes that in order to inspire the people to create a better world, it is necessary for him, along with his slave Xanthius, to venture into the realm of Hades, into the underworld via the River Styx, the Yale University pool, if you will, and retrieve a voice of culture who through their writing, can inspire the people to change the world. Their particular person that Dionysus has in mind is the playwright George Bernard Shaw, and this speaks to the power of art to change things. And it's a topic that Sondheim and all the other writers of the piece muse on considerably in the Frogs. But Nathan Lane, as I understand it, felt inclined to bring this to Broadway in the early 2000s, in the years following 9 11, because he felt as though it spoke to where society was at the time and the need for art that was going to inspire hope and affect change and refuel the city city artistically. Which is why it feels like a very pertinent piece to be producing again now. And I sort of wish that there was a little more conversation with where we are right now and what the frogs is saying about trying to fix a broken world, because, you know, obviously there's an awful lot that we could talk about. But I'll get on to that a little bit more when I talk about the production. Let me first outline the synopsis of this and point out where we run suspiciously close to the plot of the producers. So, to begin with, we have this cute little deliberately awkward framing device where two players are telling us, the audience, that they are going to put on a play for us, and that particular play is going to be Aristophanes the Frogs. And these two players take on the roles of Dionysus and Xanthius. And Dionysus compels Xanthius to join him in a quest to go and retrieve George Bernard Shaw from the underworld, and explains to him the importance of this, while also speaking for a surprisingly long amount of time about why he has a distaste for frogs. The explanation given being that frogs represent complacence and the notion of not wanting the world to change. And that's Dionysus entire driving force throughout this is that he is trying to affect change in society, change in the world. He believes that he can improve things and that that will be done through art and through theatre and through great meaningful intellectual writing. They go and seek out Heracles, who persuades them that the only way that they're going to be able to get into the underworld is if Dionysus dresses as Heracles. A mostly unimportant plot point, to be honest. They then venture cross the River Styx with Charon the boatman, and it's at this point that they encounter the frogs. Now, to explain this, I feel as though I would need to take a psychedelic, because it's really just an army of surprisingly large and very verbose dancing frogs. This whole sequence becomes an elaborate ballet. And this is the most significant structural remnant from that original production, because it was this whole aquatic feat in the Yale pool. It explains why so much of the story takes place in a boat venturing from one place to another. Eventually, after something of an amphibious skirmish, Dionysus and Xanthius finally arrive in Hell, which, it turns out, is much nicer than anyone was anticipating, where they meet with various different characters. They meet with the Dionysians, who are basking in wine and celebration of Dionysus, though they don't recognize him because he's wearing the Animal print. Then subsequently they meet with Pluto, AKA Hades. This is a Greek Roman God name situation who, after being announced by a lisping doorman, greets them in in a surprisingly camp manner. Now, if you're not hearing the parallels with the producers, I will point them out to you because right back at the beginning you had Dionysus, who is a very Max Bialystok esque character in treating a very reluctant Xanthius, who is by his side and loyal, but a little bit taken aback by all of these things, not nearly as worldly that they have to go and do this thing that Xanthius is very reluctant to do. He doesn't want to join him in this, but he's sort of just going along with it. Very Leo Bloom. Then they meet with a series of different zany and outlandish characters. The first being a kind of vacuous brute which is very Franz Liebkinned. And then subsequently a lisping doorman introducing a very campy presence who rules over the home into which they've just entered. We have in each instance basically one named female character who is a wistful object of affection and then a lot of sexual objects. And then if that wasn't enough, the casting of the original Broadway production of the Frogs really drove the point home, with Nathan Lane having recently played Max Bialystok, playing the role of Dionysus, and Roger Bart, of course, the original Carmen Gere, but an actor who had gone on to play Leo Bloom playing the role of Xanthius. It's so familiar of that. And you can hear the Mel Brooks in it as well. And you can hear the Max Bialystok lines potentially, just because it's Nathan Lane's voice with which they've been rewritten and then delivered on the cast recording. But there's a line in the Producers when Leo says to him, the actors aren't animals. And then he replies, you ever eaten with one? And there's a line when Xanthius says to him, in the Frogs, you always cry at the theater. And then he replies, have you been to the theater lately? Like, there is such a comparison between the characterizations of these two characters. And not to become a real conspiracy theorist about this, but there is even a moment where Dionysus says to Xanthius, you're going out there a slave, but you're going to come back a God. And it's just like the moment when Carmen Geass says to Roger Debris, you're going out there a Silly screaming queen. But you're going to come back a passing for straight Broadway star. Something to that effect. Anyway, after Pluto introduces us charismatically into hell, Dionysus remembers his mission and seeks out George Bernard Shaw. Finds Shaw and everything is going well until they also stumble upon Shakespeare. And a feud between Shaw and Shakespeare takes center stage. And they have essentially what is a rap battle of history before that was a thing. And they compete over a series of different topics as to who can give the best recital of their own work and who can offer the most profound and affecting commentary on those particular topics. On the idea of women, of men, of death, of life. Prompting Dionysus to realize that if he really wants to affect change in society, he must appeal to people's hearts with poetry rather than simply to their minds with a convincing intellectual thesis. And this seems to be one of the biggest topics that the writers of this piece were ruminating on, were considering in terms of the capacity of art and theatre to really affect change and to really reach people. Anyway, that is the plot of the Frogs. Let me tell you a little bit about what I think about this material so objectively. I think it's fair to say that this is not in the upper echelons of the strongest Sondheim shows. I don't believe that he considered that to be the case either. I do think that the book additions made by Nathan Lane helped to afford it a more long lasting character that will give the show a much better shelf life ongoingly. Among the really great comedic lines of dialogue, there is one in which Xanthius describes his impoverished hometown and says, if it takes a village, mine was not the village to take. But I will also say I really enjoyed discovering this material. And perhaps it's because I've spent a long time listening over and over to Here We Are, the final musical for which Sondheim composed the score. And I've been really trying to get into that. So then when I went back and listened to the Frogs, I had the surprising reaction of going, oh, here are the Sondheim melodies, here are the witty lyrics, here is everything that I had been yearning for and also something that I enjoy about it. Even though the majority of his scores feel very musically distinct because he uses music in each instance to really serve the tone of that piece. Follies, for example, sounds nothing like Sweeney Todd. You hear a lot of his other work sort of echoing in Moments of the Frogs. There's various bits of Merrily, there's sections of like the Blob that sound familiar. To sections of the Frogs. You also hear into the woods sort of sounds in there as well, and for no understandable reason whatsoever. And on tract that reminds me utterly of the Jellicle Ball from Cats. There's even a reference to another show that he didn't write. And for very good reason, because there is much discussion of George Bernard Shaw, who Xanthius mistakenly identifies as the playwright who wrote My Fair Lady. The explanation here being that Shaw wrote Pygmalion, which is the play that My Fair lady is based on. And so when Dionysus sings a song about having found and met Sjur, it is deliberately familiar of the song you did in it from My Fair Lady. And something that is universal throughout all of Sondheim's work is the cleverness and wit of his lyrics. There are so many delectable triple rhymes in this, which I just delight in so, so much. There is such clever and fun and whimsical wordplay. There are very few songs from this score that sort of exist outside of this. And there have been so many different Sondheim reviews incorporating songs from various shows. The one that we do tend to hear occasionally performed out of context is the introduct number Instructions and Invocations to the Audience, in which our two player characters beseech the gods of the theater that they smile on them in their performance and then issue a series of do's and don'ts to the crowd, which are very funny, which have been updated in the years since the song was first written to include mentions of like turning off cell phones as well as unwrapping candy and cellophane wrappers and all of those sorts of things. That song always goes down well. Audiences love that kind of a self reverential moment of acknowledgment, particularly the line please don't fart there' air. And this is art. It's just the pace of that joke is always such a great punchline landed. So that always goes down well. And in keeping with the tonal shift of the show that begins in quite a zany and campy place and goes to somewhere legitimately more sincere, there's also an added reprise of that particular section of music in which Dionysus really pleads with the audience to understand the message of the piece and not just to not along with him because he's a God. Now, if you'll indulge me for a moment. Also wrote down a handful of my other favorite lyrics out of context. There's a great one that says where men Are men and sheep are nervous. There's a great triple rhyme between ignoram rorom and decorum as well as the lyric too fussy, too fosse. And perhaps my absolute favorite, the song that the Dionysians sing in the second act when they talk about drinking wine. And they say, when you understand the world, you need a lot more wine. Now, for those of you, and I suspect there are some who are going to see this purely because it is a Sondheim that you have not seen before. And many of us have a sort of a list in our minds of Sondheims that we are ticking off. Like I said before, bafflingly, I've seen two roadshows now and not a single Sunday in the park with George. How the hell has that happened? When are we going to get major revivals of the major Sondheim shows? In amongst the admittedly great, you know, niche gems of Sondheim that we've been enjoying in London over the past couple of years, really? But for those of you in that position, there are also a lot of charming Sondheim references that have been baked into this production. I don't know how many of those are additions and how many of those existed already in the script. There's a couple of references to Merrily we roll along at 1. Kevin McHale, Xanthius says about Shaw, is he the one who wrote My Fair Lady? I sort of enjoyed it, which is a nod to the lyric I saw My Fair Lady. I kind of enjoyed it from Opening Doors and Merrily We Roll Along. Later, Shakespeare congratulates Shaw on what he calls a hit, a palpable hit, which is another line from Merrily. There's also a moment where someone dressed as Little Red Riding Hood inexplicably skips across the stage. A more obvious reference. And believe it or not, and you know, I. I couldn' mention this, there is a bad Cinderella joke that they have put into the Frogs very early on. For those of you who aren't going to get the chance to see this production and want to know what it is, I will tell you. For those who don't want to know, feel free to skip ahead 20 to 30 seconds. But Xanthius, before talking about My Fair lady, now has the surely new and additional line of dialogue. Is he the one who wrote Bad Cinderella? I enjoyed that show. It was as advertised. But I do feel that more intriguing than the score is the real intention behind the Frogs and the notion of considering the value of intellectual thought provoking art. Versus that which sounds poetic and romantic and delightful, but has a little less substance. This is the crux of the argument between Shakespeare and Shaw, and there's no room for the answer to be both, because Dionysus must choose between them, which one he wants to bring back, which one he wants to consider the solution to humanity's problems. Anyway, those are my thoughts about the material. Let me tell you a little bit more about this production, specifically at Southwark Playhouse. So, as mentioned, I had previously seen the same theatre company, Grey Area Theatre Company, and the same director, Georgie Rancombe, staging a production of another seldom seen early career Sondheim show, Anyone Can Whistle, at the same venue a few years ago. And I walked out of that production despite having already loved a few songs from the score that I think are are real gems, deciding that if there was any way to make Anyone Can Whistle work structurally, that wasn't it. And like, not enough had been really done to dramaturgically work with the material as much as making it fun and vibrant and campy. The Frogs, I thought contrastingly from what I had learned of the show, seemed like something that was a little more structurally sound but could benefit from that layer of camp and color on top. And I do still think that that is a good recipe for a great production of the Frogs. But some elements of this just didn't really come together in the way that I had been hoping. There is still legitimately good value theater happening here. It is still thought provoking. It is still witty, if not as riotously hilarious as it ought to be, as the material ought to be. There's a lot of punch lines that just aren't landing for whatever reason, for reasons that I will hope to articulate here, and essentially, I think just a near miss on where the show's tone should be. There are parts of this that do really work, and it feels like it's because we end up in a sort of a Monty Python realm occasionally. And that's the stuff that lands. We don't tend to find that distinctive Mel Brooks sort of a sound, which is the quality that you really hear coming through on the cast recording with Roger and Nathan. But in any case, one of the problems that we have here is we are just missing a few too many of the laughs. And there's great, quick, witty jokes in there that just didn't necessarily land. There's a line in which Heracles says to Dionysus, does Pandora have an open box? With Dionysus replying, that's the rumor. And if we haven't really figured out how to get the laughs from that high wit. Where the production is finding more comedy is in its moments of absurdity, but also new gags that they've added in. Like, there is a reference to Crawley at one point, which was incredibly out of pocket. Like, yes, Elephant and Castle, the nearby overground station is on the Thames Link, but that particular Thames Link doesn't go to Crawley. I just have no idea why. Crawley, of all places, is the town that became the butt of the joke in that moment. I mean, I get it. I lived there for a time, believe me. I understand. There were also a whole host of throwaway Glee jokes, if you don't know. Glee star Kevin McHale is in the cast of this production as Xanthius. There was also a little moment where Dionysus begins keeping a diary on their journey into Hades, and he films this like a little TikTok influencer, talking about the process and then saying at the end, please like and comment. It really helps me out. Which is funny on multiple levels because Dan Buckley is playing that role, who also has a big TikTok TikTok presence. But in general, as far as the understanding of the material goes by this production, it felt as though it was being presented and embellished upon with wit and playfulness, which are qualities that it could really benefit from, but with insufficient interrogation of the material and the real substance of what it's saying, or at least the ability to articulate that meaningfully on stage. And I think we had a storytelling problem with all of this as well. I think you really need to feel, not the weight necessarily, but the importance of. Of this quest to Dionysus. And to really understand what it is that he's articulating at the beginning, we have to know where we are, where we are going and why we are going. It can't already be baffling at the start, because by the time that we meet the army of Frogs, then we are truly just going to think that there's a gas leak in the building. Like, it has to make a certain amount of sense. And we understand Greek and Roman mythology. We even understand that, I think, like Greek theatrical conventions. And all of it is made very easy for us with very clear explanations at the beginning, with a lot of the traditional theatrical conventions that Sondheim was deliberately playing with in creating this score. And I would also say that despite there being a lot of resonance in what the show has to say about trying to use theatre to fix a increasingly challenged and doomed society, that isn't really played on until it becomes obvious by the end of the thing, until the speech makes it abundantly clear. But very little is done to invoke how topical that actually is is in this production. And perhaps that was a deliberate choice just to steer clear of it. But there are so many moments, I mean, there's a line that felt really neglected towards the beginning, when Dionysus is saying, like, he's talking about society's leaders and saying, have you seen our leaders lately? And he's talking about them being corrupt or being insufficient, being incapable. And this could be delivered knowingly, but it isn't. At the same time, you do absolutely get the sensation that this has all been staged with a real love for the material and for Sondheim's work in particular. You felt that in Anyone can whistle. You feel it as well here. The music is very well taken care of. I do wish we had a little bit more clarity in the sound design. If you don't know the Southwark Playhouse space, this isn't Southwark Playhouse Borough. It's being staged in the larger if they're two auditoria. But it's still a very intimate sort of room that got incredibly warm at the press night performance. Just to warn you about what you choose to wear to this theatre, I suggest swimwear. And, you know, it wasn't like a distractingly challenging sound design. You just want to really hear the clarity of Sondheim lyrics. There were also a couple of surprising moments where people seemed directed to almost whisper. And I don't think, personally, we should ever be whispering Sondheim. I think there's never a good reason to whisper Sondheim. I want to hear every single one of those words. The sequence with the frogs was probably the most challenging, just because you had a lot happening and it's dance and you had multiple different voices at once. It's also a considerably smaller cast than I believe, really any production has seen before, which, in fairness, I thought was done very convincingly and not just because of the limitations of the space. They really managed to minimize this show in a very effective way. I didn't think we lost much by not having much space in which to really venture to the underworld. The sense of location wasn't our problem. We could have done a little bit more with the lighting once we got to Hades, to suggest that being a different location, rather than just parting a curtain at the back of the set and the creation of a boat was done decently enough. I wanted it during the song Ariadne, which, amongst a Lot of more zany and surprising and pastiche comedy songs in the first act is just an earnest love song that Dionysus sings about his late wife. If we had some beautiful lighting, but if we weren't going to have any kind of visual storytelling or perhaps like dancers circling around creating images of the past, at the very least, I just wanted the thing which was capable of rolling to just be turning around gently. At the very least, far too much of it was a little too static. During the whole, whole frog sequence, which is incredibly well choreographed, I really enjoyed the frog choreography as well as the frog costuming. Really brilliant and sort of queer in a fun and playful way. Kevin McHale, during that whole sequence, was sort of stuck upstage with nowhere to move. And in general, just a few too many moments that seemed to get stuck in one spot. I really enjoyed the sections that were choreographed, though. I thought there was some very fun choreography. I thought the Frogs ballet sequence felt like a mixture between contemporary dance and sort of Michael Bennet esque chorus line parody, which was brilliant. There was a whole. There was a dance done by the Dionysians with wine glasses at the top of the second act that I thought of could have been even crazier, even zanier. If the modus operandis of this particular theater company is to re examine Sondheim through a contemporary, queer, vibrant, joyful lens, then I want every single one of those dials to be turned up. Find even more queer moments in the work of this queer composer who sadly didn't write that many queer characters, perhaps because he felt as though he couldn't find more that you could do there. Find more vibrance, find more joy, find more zaniness. This is the Frogs, of all things. Like, we could have gone considerably crazier and more colorful and more exuberant here in the characterization, in the design. Like everything, I think could have been pushed even further. And this number with the wine glasses is a great example of that. Because they're these ridiculous characters who are just talking about basking in the celebration of wine and singing these pretentious lyrics about it, deliberately so. And you have them sort of linking arms and drinking out of each other's wine glasses. At one point, you could push them. They could be like pouring wine over themselves and they could be offering it to the audience. I wanted the wine to be splashing and pouring and they're pouring it into each other's mouths and they're getting covered in wine. And I just wanted it to be more raucous because if it isn't in the satire of it all and the comedy of it all doesn't really land then. It just feels pretentious and inaccessible, which is not something that I think the Frogs needs to feel. I actually think, contrastingly to my feelings about anyone can whistle. A few years ago, this made me feel as though there is a great show here. This is not quite the production, but it gets a lot of it right. And even though the tone isn't necessarily in the right place, it goes into it with what I think is exactly the right kind of an energy. Finally, let's talk about the performances and the standouts with within this company. I was really excited when I found out that Dan Buckley was going to be playing Dionysus because I think he is really talented and really lovely. Nathan Lane's shoes are obviously a formidable pair to be stepping into because, you know, there is no success in imitating him. No one really can do what he does as well as he does. We've seen that enough times over the years. I wish, I think, that there had been a little more exuberance given in this performance. The material becomes incredibly earnest and I think there can be a mistake made in playing too much of that too early. If you. Again, if you look at this material, if you listen to this material, there's so much of like the Mel Brooks sort of a style in it and just in terms of like classic comedy rules the double act that he has with Xanthius. Xanthius is clearly the straight man here who is exasperated by all of this. And when Dionysus is a little more affected and a little more self indulgent as the God that he keeps referring to himself as, Xanthius is comparatively having none of it. Dionysus is singing a song as they're embarking on their journey into the underworld, singing I Love to travel. Xanthius comparatively does not. But a straight man only really works when he is opposite someone more flamboyant, more clownish, whatever it may be. And there are moments of sincerity in that. There are moments that require a really earnest approach from Dionysus when he's singing Ariadne, when he is reunited spoiler alert. With Ariadne in the underworld, when he is really weighing whether or not to take Shaw or whether to take Shakespeare, and re evaluating his position on this in the underworld and also trying to put across his understanding of why he thinks it's so important and being sort of haunted by the response to this in the underworld, when he is met with this idea of complacency. And Dan delivers the those heartfelt moments really meaningfully and with a really sweet sincerity and with a tremendous amount of care. I just want there to be a little more animation in the earlier moments of his character. I wonder even everyone's using their own natural accents in this. I wonder if that may be a mistake for him specifically. And I wonder if he were to perform with a contrived, clearly artificial American accent, especially alongside Kevin, who. Who is doing his own natural American accent, if that would A, be very funny and B, sort of characterize the two of them in the correct contrasting places as well. I also think on a more superficial level, a lot of the style of the comedy and the lines that were written by Nathan Lane and work so well in his voice maybe just land better in an American accent anyway. Kevin McHale, meanwhile, is immediately very, very funny on stage. The characterization really works. He is so natural on stage, which is really exciting because he's only recently started working on the stage. He, of course, was an original cast member of the TV show Glee, playing Arty. Recently, he's been in the cast of the regional American revival of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which is rumored to transfer to New York. I hope he goes with it if it does, but he does a really great job in this as well. It also made me think that he'd be a really fun Leo Bloom in a production of the Producer Producers. And he's at his best in this when engaging directly with the audience. There's an almost sort of flirtatious, playful quality with how he delivers some of this dialogue. It's just. It's a really fun performance, as is the guest appearance by Victoria Scone, one of multiple performers who will be playing the role of Pluto throughout the show's run. Also set to appear in this role during the show's run are Danielle Steers and Joe Foster, each of whom will give incredibly different performance performances you can only assume to each other and to Victoria Scone, who, if you don't know, is an alumnus of RuPaul's Drag Race. She was the first cisgender woman to compete as a drag queen on RuPaul's Drag Race. And she is great in this. Who knew that she was so good at Sondheim? There is, as my Stasia Fields Aaron James pointed out, a sort of a Judi Dench quality in some of her delivery. But it feels at times as though you're listening to Judi Dench after she Said had, like two pictures of Wetherspoon's cocktails specifically, but she's really a triumph in this. Not only arriving with a tremendous sense of presence and confidence at a time in the show when we really need something to change up the pace. And leading this number, singing about what Hades the place is like with a lot of pizzazz as well. A lot of really great lyrics in there. I wish the orchestrations were a little bit more playful with the whole kind of unexpected bossa nova esque quality to the music. But everything that she does in her affected, raspy vocal delivery, in the wobbling of the head to make the gray wig bounce in serving face. It's a very drag performance, but it works really well in this role. I'd be very intrigued to see what Danielle and Joe and a fourth as yet unconfirmed performer are going to do with this character. But I really enjoyed Victoria Scone. I thought she was great. Another standout performance came from my very talented friend Joaquin Pedro Valdez, who played the role of Heracles as well as Princess performing in the ensemble, playing a bunch of different roles, including as one of the frogs. But I really enjoyed his Heracles. It was sort of vapid in like perhaps a kind of a Californian type of a way. It reminded me of some of like the crazy ex girlfriend characters. But he was styled in sort of boxing attire. There was a visual gag at one point about him dunking his face into a bowl of ice, which was nodding to off of the stupid misogynistic male influencer morning routine shtick that's going around right now. It was fantastically sung, as always by him, vividly characterized and physically embodied with perhaps a sort of a homoeroticism as well, I dare say. Fantastic choices made by Joaquin. A really brilliant character, but a surprising standout for me. Surprising because I didn't know too much of his work really previously was Karl Patrick playing the duke. Dual roles of Sharon, who is the boatman across the river Styx, as well as his twin who is the doorman of Pluto, who was not happy to hear the name Heracles because Heracles had murdered Cerberus, the three headed guard dog of the underworld. And you know, it wasn't the material that he was delivering, it was the way that it was characterized. This was genuinely show stoppingly funny. The biggest, most unexpected expected laughs of the evening because it was performed with utter commitment. It was physical comedy. It was ridiculous vocal affectation. He had this pausing quality as the second character and a whistling lisp that just kept getting funnier and funnier and funnier. But also it was straight out of a Monty Python sketch. It was really a Monty Python type of a comedy and that, I think is why it was working particularly for a British audience. This was hysterical. He's wonderful in this show and praise has to go to the rest of this very hard working ensemble. It is challenging material to navigate and to figure out, but it was performed with such commitment. It was brilliantly well danced, it was wittily characterized. We had a really great parody of George Bernard Shaw and another of Shakespeare and their confrontation was really funny, even if it started to become a little bit protracted. But that's in the writing, that's not in this production and its particular choices. It just felt as though that first scene between them ought to be the end of it and we didn't need to go away and have a revelation from Ariadne and then return to the competition between the two of them. It wasn't compelling enough for us to go back there, but these are things that you can discover for yourself when you go and see the Frogs at Silic Playhouse. And if you have any kind of interest in Sondheim, then I think you have to go and at least see this production and find out how you feel feel about it. It's always interesting to see a show revived, to see a musical that isn't staged very often brought back to life, and to see new life breathed into it. There are some really exciting and funny performances in this that are worth the price of admission. Go and check out the Frogs at Southwark Playhouse. Who knows when you will next get a chance. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this review. I hope that you enjoyed. If you did, make sure to subscribe right here on YouTube. Turn on those notifications so you you don't miss my upcoming videos, including many more reviews. Or go follow me on podcast platforms. And if you have already seen the Frogs at Southwark Playhouse, then well done to you. Let us all know what you thought of the show in the comments section down below. And if you've seen a previous production of the Frogs, I would love to hear about it. Please let me know. Thank you so much. I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a Stagey Day. Subscribe.