By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Thursday 29 August and runs through 13 February 2025 RUNTIME: 145 minutes (including a 20-minute interval) Update: now closing 19 January 2025

It’s such a simple idea – 2 best friends on a sofa discussing their lack of romantic success as big song and dance numbers break out all around and starring them – that it really shouldn’t work.

• Read on for reasons including how this is the best new musical of the year so far

But it does. We leave the theatre with tears in our eyes and joy in our heart because this is a quite moving and very mature celebration of platonic love which will do. For now.

They say write about what you know and Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, the creators of the Tony-winning SIX- The Musical still running in the West End at the Vaudeville, give us an unlikely friendship.

If it all sounds a bit like a nod to beloved 90s comedy Friends there’s more than a wink to that too and Oliver is a northerner in their 20s, wears a skirt and their preferred pronouns literally depend on which way the wind is blowing and is brought to vivid life by non-binary performer Jo Foster (Just For One Day, Old Vic).

One of the show’s highlights is their early number 8 Dates in which we follow them through the preparations and devastations of a series of hook-ups in which things go terribly and yet comically wrong and they end up instead seeking solace with their Scottish best friend forever, the remarkably voiced Leesa Tulley.

If you’re sensing an Oliver! the musical theatrical theme there you wouldn’t be far wrong and Nancy’s a complicated character with her own commitment issues and song Just In Case is a great example of the difficulties of grieving.

They’re surrounded by a gigantic all-singing, all-dancing cast and during the uptempo Meet Market the transactional nature of dating apps and the trials of social media are exposed while riffing on the shopping trolley video inspiration of Pulp‘s Common People.

The most moving song for us however was the quite brilliant dancefloor rush of Disco Ball during which Oliver describes the dichotomy of becoming the gay butterfly you always wanted to be while simultaneously grounding yourself with self-loathing.

SIX riffed on a lot of different musical genres and Marlow and Moss are given a more contemporary feel here by Future Cut, who worked on the debut Lily Allen album, and MNEK whose pop hits you may already be familiar with.

The ‘big fancy musical’s’ other great strength is that it’s sweary and sounds very much like it’s speaking with an authenticity that ensures you know that this is a genuine and heartfelt story told with love, care and lashings of humour.

We need to see it to fully appreciate it again and soon and are delighted that the demo of 8 Dates is now on music platforms because we want it to be joined there by the entire cast album so we can get a better appreciation of this work of genius – over and over.

Best new musical of the year so far.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Nimax Theatres Tickets
• Have you seen a Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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