'I Can't Sing!' London Palladium *

The year 2014 hasn't exactly been a successful year for musical theatre with 'Stephen Ward' and 'From Here to Eternity' closing very early into its run, there is another production about to vacate its stage and it is Harry Hill's 'I Can't Sing!' I must advocate this performance is a disgrace to the theatre industry and wasn't worth all the fuss it created. The decision to create a musical based entirely on music and television mogul Simon Cowell and talent show 'The X Factor' was a vile subject/concept and the narrative was woeful and sickening to witness as it felt rather under rehearsed and not taken with pure heart and enjoyment, and that was from the acting company as well as the Creative Team. I thought that the plot of searching for the next music superstar seemed far too cliché and the comic elements within the dialogue was vastly lacklustre and quite frankly unfunny. At points I had the urge to leave, but decided to remain to see if the show would improve and sadly it was repulsive from beginning to end. The production was more heinous than last year’s Spice Girls musical 'Viva Forever!' The music and lyrics by Steve Brown were not captivating in all aspects of the poor performance and I found that they were not constructed with the intention to entertain an audience, but to make money, in particular Simon Cowell. Simply awful and infuriated me immensely. Every single musical number was atrocious especially "It Could Be Me", "Here Come The Judges" and "Please Simon". There definitely needed more work and passion that would've made the production more appealing. Katie Prince's choreography was sincerely appalling and looked too improvised for one’s liking. It feels that the musical was meant to make money, rather than artistic success. On the other hand, it's lost over £4 million and a major blow to Simon Cowell's ego. The performances by the company of ‘I Can’t Sing!’ were far too cheesy and is not conveyed with tenacity whatsoever. Nigel Harman's portrayal of the impresario Simon Cowell was ridiculous, in particular his facial expressions, which looks very melodramatic and his movements are far too camp! Simon Bailey was far too creepy as Liam O'Deary was a vast replica of the actual host, Dermot O'Leary. Alan Morrissey was quite woeful as the plumber, Max. The only reason why I stayed up with Cynthia Erivo as the girl searching for a music career Chenice as her vocal delivery was wonderful. The direction by Sean Foley was horrific as he seems to have not cared about the premise of performance and quite vulgar to be truthful. I was not impressed with this whatsoever and this is the real cause for concern for musical theatre. Hopefully 'The Pyjama Game' and 'Memphis' will be much better. I had a lacklustre experience here and extremely pleased it's closing early.