Kathy & Stella Solve A Murder! | Live Show Review – TOP 20 MUSICALS 2024: No 14

Encountering it in the West End for the first time, my overriding feeling is that I wish I had seen one of those earlier iterations. What might have been quirky and charming up close in an unconventional space feels simultaneously bloated and undernourished even in a house as intimate as the Ambassadors Theatre.

Kathy & Stella Solve a Murder! marries a thudding pop score to the tall tale of a pair of young women from Hull whose podcast about their fascination with real-life homicides embroils them in an actual crime when their favourite author is decapitated on a book tour. It’s a jokey, knowing romp that feels like a spin-off of a TV show rather than a fully fledged musical. Murder investigation and singing make strange bedfellows, resulting in a score that, in attempting to convey large chunks of information in song, is characterised mainly by lots of expositional recitative ending in a vocal flourish, rather than memorable melodies. A couple of sequences sound a bit like Operation Mincemeat at its most vaudevillian, and the few ponderous ballads slow the action down. There are some excellent voices in the cast but the sound design is so poor that it’s hard to make them out; ditto for the lyrics which
are too often unintelligible.

Jon Brittain and Fabian Aloise’s staging, set in the garage where Kathy and Stella record their podcast (Cecilia Carey’s scenic design has assorted bric-a-brac all over the walls and is dominated by a giant metal door), is relentlessly energetic, often at the expense of clarity, and seldom gives the impression that much is at stake. The dialogue is delivered at high speed, and that, in tandem with the sound issues, means that not every verbal joke lands, and there’s a lot of shouting and bawling. The physical comedy however, while not subtle, proves to be genuinely crowd-pleasing.

An uncharacteristically sensitive sequence at the top of Act Two shows the genesis of the women’s friendship from meeting in school, through Stella’s mum’s illness to the depression that ends Kathy’s university stint. It frustratingly hints at what a more satisfying and interesting show this could be if it would only stop flinging the raucous humour, profanities and exaggerated characters at us with quite so much gusto. 

This section also allows Bronté Barbé and Rebekah Hinds in the title roles, fine performers both normally, to do some proper acting instead of the compendia of face-pulling, funny voices and silly walks that constitute much of the rest of their performances. Barbé in particular is hampered by a pair of outsize specs and a Little Orphan Annie fright wig that make it difficult to take much seriously about gawky, sweet Kathy, and gets few opportunities to unleash her terrific voice. Hinds has formidable comic instincts but, on the night I saw it, appeared to be going through the motions.

Hannah Jane Fox fares even worse as the murdered writer and her siblings. Fox excels at bone-dry wit but feels at sea here in a role that needs a chameleonic clown to really make the outrageous humour and specific characterisations land. Elliot Broadfoot finds some real pathos in Kathy’s mum while Elliotte Williams-N’Dure and Ben Redfern do valiant work in underwritten roles. Imelda Warren-Green makes astonishingly bold choices as a terminally gormless podcast fan, and delivers vocals that suggest she should be a shoo-in for next time The Cher Show goes on tour.

A new British musical in the West End should be cause for celebration, and this one certainly has a vociferous fan base (I’m hoping this review doesn’t result in death threats). For all the enthusiasm and hype surrounding the show though, I don’t see Kathy and Stella taking their place in the pantheon of classic Musical Theatre heroines.

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Cast Bronté Barbé, Rebekah Hinds, Elliot Broadfoot, Jen Caldwell, Hannah Jane Fox, Chelsea Hall,
Sorelle Marsh, Ben Redfern, Imelda Warren-Green, Elliotte Williams-N’Dure

Direction Jon Brittain, Fabian Aloise

Choreography Fabian Aloise

Musical supervision, orchestrations Charlie Ingles

Musical direction Andrew Hilton

Set, costumes Cecilia Carey

Lighting Peter Small

Sound Tingying Dong, Dan Samson 

Dramaturgy Gillian Greer