Reputation at The Other Palace
Reputation is a new musical with music and lyrics by Alick Glass and original story by Alick and Suzanne Glass. It tells of a young aspiring writer Michelle Grant who is at deportment school in Paris. Her classmates spot an advert in Variety magazine asking for stories to be submitted for consideration to be turned into screen plays. She submits it, unaware that this is a scam perpetrated by Freddie Larson designed to get scripts to publish under his own name.
The story itself is interesting and original but unfortunately the execution lets down the overarching plot. The book is stilted with much of it sounding scripted as opposed to natural.
In addition to this many of the songs failed to drive the plot or develop characters further. There is a whole number sang predominantly in French, ‘Raindrops/ Les Larnes’ which encapsulates this completely. Whilst some of the melodies are beautiful throughout the show none of them are catchy and unusually for me I didn’t leave humming any of the tunes.
The cast themselves do a pleasant job. Jeremy Secomb plays the villain of the piece, Freddy Larson, who also takes on the role of the narrator. He is commanding when he is on stage however I would have liked to have seen more of him and the relationships around him and the motivation that drives him. The role of Michelle Grant, played by Maddy Banks, could be a really strong role, standing up to Larceny however she is played slightly simpering which makes it a struggle for the audience to warm to her. The gaggle of girls that surround Michelle at school, due to a combination of the writing and direction are irritating rather than amusing.
Reputation is a show that needs a lot of work before it will start to build a good reputation of its own. An interesting and potentially compelling story but everything else around it needs examining and reworking to turn this show around.
Reputation on is at the Other Palace until 14th November 2019. For more information visit their website.
If you like this review you might also like my review of Death of A Salesman, High Fidelity and Soho Cinders.