After many hours spent watching Titus Burgess on our TV screens in the likes of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Schmigadoon! as well as wishing I could see him appear in some of his Broadway roles including Sebastian the Crab in the Little Mermaid and Zidler in Moulin Rouge he has finally made his way to London for his own concert series, The Indecisive Warrior.

For someone with a huge list of theatre credits one may have expected for the set list to be packed full of musical theatre but this couldn’t have been further from the truth, whilst there as musical theatre such as a Porgy & Bess medley, King of the World from Songs For A New World and even Poor Unfortunate Souls from the Little Mermaid there was also a huge range of other influences including a soulful rendition of Rhianna’s ‘Please Don’t Stop The Music,’ and ‘Guess Who I Saw Today.’ It was interesting to see what else Burgess could do but it was clear that the numbers that brought the house down were the more stagey ones and it would have been good to see Burgess lean in more heavily to this side of his repertoire.

There were numerous jazzy interludes by the band, including a long instrumental opening. Whilst the band were clearly talented musicians in their own right it felt hard to connect this with Burgess who was yet to appear on stage and it dragged slightly as we waited in anticipation for the man of the hour.

Whilst the set list could do with some tweaking there is no doubt about Burgess’ talents, his vocals were sublime but when he interacted with the audience in numbers such as Goldfinger he had them eating out of the palm of his hand. I would have loved to have heard more from Burgess with some anecdotes as he is clearly charismatic and his storytelling would have been incredibly engaging. He offered out a Q&A session but the audience failed to really bite on this point, a real shame as on a good night this could have been a real highlight

Whilst the show was billed as 2 hours it came in just under 90 minutes with an interval. Whilst there were 11 numbers, albeit one medley in there, Act 2 in particular felt over before it began and Burgess himself was probably on stage for under an hour in total. Whilst it was the opening night maybe some tweaking may benefit the set list and pacing.

The Indecisive Warrior clearly shows that Burgess is brimming with talent and charisma as well as showcasing him outside of the musical theatre genre, but sometimes you just have to give the audience what they came for!!

Titus Burgess – The Indecisive Warrior is on at The Phoenix Arts club until October 13th. You can find out more and buy tickets here.

The set list was:

Act 1:

• Everybody Wants to Rule The World
• Bigger Than My Body
• Stop This Train
• I Still Got My Health
• Please Don’t Stop The Music
• Guess Who I Saw Today
• Confusion
• King of the World

Act 2:

• Goldfinger
• Porgy & Bess Medley
• Poor Unfortunate Souls

If you liked this review you might also like my review of Stranger Things, Mean Girls and Moulin Rouge.