By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN?: Saturday 2 November (matinee), runs through 23 November 2024 RUNTIME: 130 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Settle (& Juliet, Shaftesbury Theatre) plays Miss Coddle, a new character created for the film Wicked released later this month and she’s by some distance the best reason to catch this new musical at this 300-seater venue.

• Read on for reasons including how this is worth seeing for Settle but manages to be both big-hearted and yet heavy-handed

You may be more familiar with Settle singing This Is Me from film The Greatest Showman and here the actress plays Jennifer who is diagnosed with terminal cancer leaving her aspiring writer daughter Malia trying to make sense of life.

We’re in the front row and Robyn Rose-Li (film Wonka) is strong as Malia and her chemistry with an imperiously-voiced Settle and the actor playing Malia’s grieving father – Cavin Cornwall – is good.

Unfortunately, the arrival of fictional characters from Malia’s own imagination armed with fistfuls of confetti they insist on scattering to signify their appearance only serves to highlight what a cliched mountain climbing metaphor they are illustrating.

It’s no reflection on the actors playing the parts – Maddison Bulleyment and Edward Chitticks – who have strong singing voices and are doing their best with some fairly thin writing.

Max Gill is interesting as fellow writer Caleb who bonds with Malia at writing camp and provides some solid advice about loss although the take-home that it will inform the grieving daughter’s work feels both trite and heavy-handed.

The songs are pleasant and in the vein of Pasek and Paul (Dear Evan Hansen) but the titular Fly More Than You Fall sentiment is childlike and cloying rather than endearing.

The young adult subject matter here was brought far more successfully and vividly to life in Your Lie In April which closed early at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End earlier this year.

A particularly cruel retort to her father in Act Two had the audience gasping in unison in amazement at Malia’s behaviour and the show’s strongest song is also there – the peppy ensemble number called, we think, Life Is The Worst – but the conclusion struggles without the star turn and peerless vocals of Settle.

Fly More Than You Fall is worth seeing for Settle in such an intimate venue but it’s a show which, curiously, manages to be both big-hearted and yet heavy-handed.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Southwark Playhouse Tickets
• Have you seen a Keala Settle show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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