Gil Hates Everything

Wow, this was disappointing, and it’s all in the execution, because this – read the extremely interesting backstory here on Wikipedia – is a very good concept for a show. There’s a great story to be told about a transatlantic relocation, of moving to a new world, and finding how that new world treats you, and how you have to change for that world. But this ain’t it.

The biggest problem, as observed by the critic Frank Rich, is that this one-woman show features a horrible character. Of course, Frank Rich may not have met many of this kind of English girl. I suspect an American show about a girl moving to the big city probably wouldn’t attempt to feature both an obnoxious grasping shallow character and an attempt to paint her as an innocent ingenue. This character is equipped with quite the sense of entitlement as well as a hefty case of contempt for America. Apparently ALW et al were offended by Bernadette Peters’ attempt to research (and presumably resolve the contradictions within) the character for the Americanised version of the show. Well, Andrew, if you will collaborate in the creation of such a lame show, that’s gonna happen…

I listened to the 2003 ‘expanded’ soundtrack, which relies on you really, really liking Denise Van Outen’s singing voice and accent (fail on both counts) as well as the material. There’s a whole bunch of recitative on here, all of which is terrible, and a few new songs compared to the 1980 original.

In theory some of these songs should be good, and you have to wince at how Don Black’s lyrics blow so many of the chances. Bad prosody in ALW shows is often blameable on ALW’s reputed inclination to write the music and then refuse to change a note of it; you could offload some of the blame onto his lyricists for not being able to find a way to weave words to the specified melodies, but really, that’s not much of a collaborative attitude, is it? And Black clearly can’t cope with the pressure. Try to listen to “Take That Look Off Your Face” without wondering how deaf to the rhythm of the spoken word you’d have to be to find it tolerable.

There are few profound truths being revealed here. Black’s strengths here are culture-shock humour (“Speed Dating”, “Capped Teeth And Caesar Salad”) and occasionally some surprisingly low-key and effective emotion (the title song, to which I fear I have a special personal connection). His weaknesses are finding ways to keep the character alive when she’s the only person on stage, and repeatedly writing songs which are directly contradictory to the woman’s personality. “Tyler King”, on the other hand, is pretty good, and works exactly as intended… I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out why.

On the far side on a bunch of unsuccessful relationships, the woman winds up concluding that she’s going to get it all right in the future, a conclusion which frankly doesn’t appear supported by the evidence. Myself, I was boggling at how anyone could find this enjoyable. It must have set back Anglo-American relations, both on-stage and off, by at least a decade – the idea of it being revived in 2003 is insultingly ludicrous and demonstrative of England’s terrible, terrible paranoia about America – and the wild range of orchestration (“Haven In The Sky” is actually great fun, except when Van Outen is singing) doesn’t help in the slightest.

This show is a rotten piece of frozen crap similar to the non-recyclable stuff which gets ejected from space capsules and remains orbiting in the firmament but which must never be mistaken for a star. It’s 10% good songs, 70% shitty songs, 20% WTF recitative, and 100% horrible. If you’re ever confronted with the chance to see this show, kick the person offering you the ticket right in the nuts, thus saving both yourself – and possibly them, if you do it hard enough – from a fate worse than death.

Random Panda hated this, which I hope I’ve communicated in the above paragraphs, and awards it two out of ten pieces of bamboo, and it should be fucking grateful for that…

(originally posted 2009)