Hot show flushed with success

Hot Flush

Lichfield Garrick

*****

HOT Flush is a sort of cross between Sex in the City, panto and stand-up with Flanders and Swann and Chubby Brown thrown in for good measure. It is a bawdy, mucky, girls' night out and gloriously funny.

The musical is all about four women of that certain age when gravity is beginning to get the edge in the battle for their bodies and hormones and moods clash daily – in short the menopause.

Myra (Lesley Joseph), Sylvia (Hilary O'Neil), Helen (Anne Smith) and Jessica (Ruth Keeling), form the Hot Flush club where they compare notes, try remedies, discuss HRT and give their views on men – all to an audience of largely women of a certain age . . . and a handful of brave men either there by accident or because they had a masochistic streak.

Not that it is an anti-men rant but a musical about the menopause is hardly going to get the local boozer organising a coach trip for a lads' night out is it?

SILICON ENHANCED

Myra's husband has left her for a younger woman, a silicon enhanced bimbo, while sexy Sylvia is bored with her husband, as she has been for 20 years, and is having a secret affair with Myra's 18-year son. A situation she blames on HRT turning her into a nymphomaniac.

Overweight Jessica is being pursued by the vicar while her husband spends all his waking hours in his shed while Helen's husband has left her by inconsiderately dying and she is looking for new love.

The 18-year old son, give or take 20 years or so, and every other male part is played brilliantly in a variety of wigs, walks, accents and costumes by Matt Slack who shows his stand-up and panto roots with impeccable timing and a cheeky smile.

Amid the lewd lines there are a few poignant, serious moments, and a couple of sad songs and there are some real menopause moments which really found their mark with the audience from the howls of knowing approval. But most of all this was a slick, often witty show which produced two-and-a-half hours of laughs. To 14-05-10

Roger Clarke 

 

Home Lichfield Garrick Reviews A-Z Reviews by Theatre