Anatomy of a flop.

I can’t sing. London Palladium.


To London last Saturday with pre booked rail tickets, first stop Leicester Square ticket booth to see what shows we could get in.

My wife had tickets to see the X Factor based musical “I can’t sing” for June and was disappointed to receive an e mail saying the show was to end in May so we got tickets for the afternoon matinee performance. If we’d got tickets for the evening (and very last) show we would also have enjoyed a speech from Harry Hill who co wrote it.

The strange thing was the production got rave reviews when it started and indeed was not bad at all but the Palladium is a big theatre, the biggest in the West End, and if there aren’t enough bums on seats off it goes.

Whilst admitting that there were weaknesses we really enjoyed the parody of the popular (not with me) ITV show and the finale was truly spectacular. Furthermore, leading lady Cynthia Erivo has a fantastic voice. She most certainly can sing. Even though I wouldn’t cross the room to turn on the TV to watch X Factor I found the whole exercise thoroughly worthwhile and the typical Harry Hill bonkersness shone through. I can tell you now, as I can’t spoil a show that’s finished, The Simon Cowell character descends from heaven at the start to celestial voices, then at the end he climbs into a spaceship, which actually lowers into the audience almost touching them before returning the musical guru from whence he came.

Go on Harry, only one way to end the performance. Flight!