Review: THE JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT at Southwark Playhouse Borough

The show presents an intentionally loose hotchpotch of his other songs — some playful, some searingly heartfelt, others unashamedly political and subversive like Valentine's Day and Falling Apart (both lifted from Prostate of the Nation which was written as the AIDS crisis exploded across Reagan's America). Eighteen songs in total are cobbled together for no particular reason except that they deserve to be heard and appreciated for their oft-raw and sometimes unpolished collective record of a very particular man, who lived and created at a very particular time, in a most particular city.

Directed by John Simpkins and delivered by five performers, each of whom is blessed with the confident vitality of youth and a beautiful, modern pop-theatre voice, the show flies by in 90 minutes without interval. Among the other notable compositions sung by Michael Mather, Natalie Kassanga, Marcus Collins, Imelda Warren-Green and Max Harwood, are the unashamedly punchy pop pleaser Out Of My Dreams, the histrionic Sondheim-esque stylings of Hosing the Furniture, the Exxon Valdez exposé Iron Mike, One Of These Days (part of Larson's dystopian musical Superbia), and Break Out The Booze.

The show, which is performed on a thrust stage by set designer Nate Bertone (with additional video projections by Alex Basco Koch) is accompanied by a 5-piece live band ranged above the main playing area and under the musical direction of Livi van Warmelo. If there are gripes, they would be of the technical variety and specifically in relation to a bustling stage where during the frequent movement of plinths, a piano and a step ladder, the lighting can sometimes throw-up strange shadows for the cast members to play against, and ground level fold-back monitors which present potentially deathly trip hazards, despite Taylor Walker's best efforts as the company's movement director. Oddly enough, while there is very little discernible narrative thread, the end result is so evocative of its time that in many ways, for those of us who regularly spent time in NYC during the early 1990s, the production serves as a poignant and nostalgic blast from the past.

THE JONATHAN LARSON PROJECT is due to continue at Southwark Playhouse until 22nd August.

The Jonathan Larson Project Tickets