I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change @ Greenside

He said he'd call today!

Article by Antony Sammeroff | 22 Aug 2011

Part musical, part comedy sketch-show , I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, is the second longest running Off-Broadway musical. It is really a collage of relationship-related comic dramas some of which are more amusing than others. The first act is predominantly about dating anxieties, while the second revolves around family life.

Viva Arts and Community Group bring some interesting interpretations to their roles (the performances of Simon Thompson, Ryan Hutton and Shelly Baigent are particularly quirky) and there are some great voices in there (the high notes of Emily Norman stood out) but a lot of the humour suffered from predictability and clichéd settings such as the woes of shoe-shopping with a lady-friend.

In general the musical accompaniments are not particularly adventurous but the show hits off with a memorable cantata (a vocal composition involving a choir typically used for sacred texts) which sees the full cast singing in close harmony over a strange selection of chords. The hilarious Hey There Single Gal/Guy in the first act has two parents passive-aggressively bemoaning their son and his former girlfriend for breaking up while feigning encouragement.

I love you... ends on a high note in a moving scene where an elderly gentleman makes an “attempted pick-up” on an elderly lady before they burst into song on the contradictions of old age; one gets up too early, the other too late, one’s kids never visit, the other’s never leave.

15-19th August @ Greenside

http://www.viva-group.org.uk