Pop Off Michaelangelo by Dylan Marc Aurele, The Other Palace, 12 Palace Street, London until 05 November 2024, 3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Steve Ulathorne.

Pop Off Michaelangelo by Dylan Marc Aurele, The Other Palace, 12 Palace Street, London until 05 November 2024,

3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Camper than Chloe.”

As a work in progress this high camp musical, a hit on the fringe at Edinburgh, has turned up at the Other Palace for a showcase stint with virtually the same cast. Well choreographed, nicely staged, slickly performed with a tuneful score it is a blatant attempt to recreate the success of Six by sending up ancient histort with little regard to the facts – the joke is that Michaelangelo and Leonardo daVinci are bosom buddies and seek forgiveness for their sins from God by becoming the greatest religious painters of all time. The result are a series of caricatures of gay male behaviour which had this been a Benny Hill show would have had the audience up in arms, Every gave comic cliché in the book gets trotted out as the cast head over the top relentlessly. Calm down, dears, there is a show there. It could even be a very good show and there is nothing wrong with the basic Leo and Angelo affair gimmick as the excuse, just that if you are going to send up the world of queens – as I said Six is the inspiration – do it with some subtlety and stop the actors from doing anything to get a laugh regardless. The pair did meet in real life for both relied on the same patrons but Leonardo was 20 years older than Michaelangelo – a missed opportunity for jokes about young gay men and their old husbands for a start. Sending up history is fine but send up the real thing, or at least a semblance of it and not a Carry On Renaissance affair but Generation Z may well fall for it while were it the Benny Hill show they would be there with their posters protestingoutside the theatre and possibly inside as well. However given the British passion for queens flouncing about, even when over done as it is here, we may not have heard the last of this camper than Chloe show.

Cast

Max Eade – Michaelangelo.

Aidab MacColl – Leonardo da Vinci.

Paul Toulson – the Pope.

Conn McGirr – Salai,

Lucy Carter – Savanarola.

Maiya Quansah-Breed – Mother

Creatives

Director – Joe McNeice.