Happy Sunday everyone, I’ve got another new musical for you this week – Kimberley Akimbo at the off-West End Hampstead Theatre which as an added bonus was another new-to-me venue as I continue to tick off theatre spaces around London. This one opened this week and runs until November.
Kimberly Akimbo is the story of Kimberly Levaco, a teenage girl who suffers from a condition that makes her age rapidly. At the start of the show she and her family have just moved to a new town and we follow her as she tries to make friends at her new school and also navigate what I would describe as a complicated home life all the while knowing that the average life span for someone with her condition is 16 – and as she turns 16 during the show her time to find happiness and experience life is running out.
This has music by Jeanine Tesori, who also wrote Caroline or Change, and is based on a play of the same name from the year 2000 which was written by David Lindsay-Abaire who also wrote the book and lyrics for this. The musical was first produced Off-Broadway in 2021 and won Best Musical at the Drama Desk Awards and then moved to Broadway in 2022 where it won five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Score and Best Actress in a Musical for Victoria Clarke who played Kimberly. This London premiere has Maria Friedman as Kimblerly, Alice Fearn as her aunt Debra and Niamh Perry as Kimberly’s mom.
For a show about a teenager with a terminal illness this is surprisingly funny and upbeat. I thought the other teen characters were great and the dynamics of the group of nerds/misfits who embrace Kimberly – and that none of the drama in the show is about kids being mean to Kimberly. Her family are chaotic and possibly psychotic and aunt Debra is an absolute scene stealer of a role which Alice Fearn absolutely makes the most of.
I loved the music – the lyrics are clever and I came home humming the songs, and I’ve listened to the Broadway recording a bunch since as well. This was a surprise to me because although I enjoyed Caroline, or Change when I saw it in London with the amazing Sharon D Clarke* in 2018, it wasn’t a show where I came out thinking that I was going to have to listen to the cast recording of it immediately because I had enjoyed the music so much. I saw the third preview and despite the fact the director was sat two seats across from me and making notes, I thought it was already in really good shape. There were a few bits where I thought it might be tightened up, a little bit of technical stuff that needed cleaning up and polishing and a couple of issues with the sound balance, but honestly I’ve been to shows in the middle of their runs that have had the same issues – or worse.
But I have no doubt that it will get the tweaks because this has a very high powered production crew behind it and all the hallmarks of a show that is being staged with thoughts about making a transfer in to the West End at a later point. Michael Longhurst also directed that Caroline or Change and is a former artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse. Designer Soutra Gilmour did the Rachel Zegler Evita (among many Jamie Lloyd productions) as well as Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), &Juliet, and the recent Woman in Mind revival with Sheridan Smith. Maria Friedman mostly directs these days (notably the Merrily We Roll Along with Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe that won *all* the awards) but she has eight Olivier nominations as a performer (and another as director) and three wins (and a fourth for director). Basically I really liked this and I would happily go and see this again – whether it’s at Hampstead or in the West End down the line.
I bought a ticket in advance and didn’t wait for discounts because I wasn’t sure how this was going to sell. There are now a few offers around, but it’s hard to tell whether that will last if the word of mouth and the reviews are good because it’s not a big theatre in the grand scheme of things. In my opinion it’s definitely worth venturing up to Swiss Cottage for. In fact I’m not ruling out a repeat trip before the end of the run in November if I can manage it to see how it has developed and changed. But I do already have a very busy theatrical autumn…
Happy Sunday!
*I was really looking forward her Othello at the RSC, and I’m sending her every positive thought as she has treatment for cancer.
**She also the Sally Bowles on the cassette tape of Cabaret I had as a teenager, but someone that I’d never seen live because although she was in the Fiddler on the Roof revival in 2019, it was as a replacement after I had seen it
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 