A Touch Of Broadway At The Tabard

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Our Reviewer loves feel-good musical 'Edges'

Edges at The Tabard is a very pleasant way to spend a summer’s evening, or a Sunday afternoon. It’s a feel-good musical about four young people – Thomas Henson, Luke Street, Christina Modestou and Rebecca Jayne Davies - on the brink of adulthood and facing up to the next stage of their lives. They’re reviewing the past, contemplating the future, coping with the present, and of course they’re looking for love.

It moves along at a cracking pace with fourteen songs in just over an hour. There’s no plot, all the songs are like little windows, giving insights into the four lives and what matters to them, and there’s a lot of stuff: a missing parent, FaceBook, lost loves all come into the frame, alongside hopes and dreams and anticipation. Some songs are wistful, some are optimistic, some are sad, and some are very funny.

The four members of the cast are young, good looking, have great voices, and throw themselves into the action with an infectious enthusiasm. It’s cleverly choreographed by Lewis Butler so they make the most of The Tabard’s space.

And too keep it all bopping along they are accompanied on the piano by musical director Edward Court.

Edges was written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who also wrote the score for James and the Giant Peach. It was a Broadway hit in 2007 and it has played all over the world since then. What we have here is an expanded production which includes some songs that weren’t in the Broadway original, and we’re jolly lucky it’s come to The Tabard.

I really enjoyed it, and only have one complaint - that there wasn’t an encore of the closing number.

Edges is at The Tabard until 30th August.

Penny Flood

August 6, 2014