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You can’t stop the boats: Sorry We Didn’t Die At Sea @ParkTheatre

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Sorry We Didn’t Die At Sea by Italian playwright Emanuele Aldrovandi and translated by Marco Young, has made a topical return to London at the Park Theatre after playing earlier this summer at the Seven Dials Playhouse. In a week when leaders and leaders in waiting were talking about illegal immigration, it seemed like a topical choice . It also has one hell of an evocative title. The piece opens with Adriano Celantano’s Prisencolinensinainciusol , which sets the scene for what we are about to see. After all, a song about communication barriers seems perfect for a play about people trafficking and illegal immigration. One side doesn’t understand why they happen, and the other still comes regardless of the latest government announcement / slogan .  However, the twist here is that the crossing is undertaken the other way. People are fleeing Europe instead of escaping war or poverty in Africa or the Middle East. It’s set sometime in the not-too-distant future. There is a crisis causing p

There’s something about Elena: It Happened In Key Key West @CharingCrossThr

This isn’t your typical West End Musical at the Charing Cross Theatre. Creepy German radiologist Von Cosel treats a woman, Elena, for tuberculosis. She dies. Two years later he digs her up and lives with her. Parading her about, propping her up for the following years, Weekend At Bernies style. 

He’s convinced that she is the vision of the woman he would spend his life with. As she decomposes, he imagines a life of bliss. On one level it’s not a very convincing musical. The score at times seems to mimic Andrew Lloyd Webber. It’s also overlong with superfluous exposition. But there’s something likeable about this musical. It’s polished and has some terrific performances.

Other famous necrophiliacs were weird. You’d never want to eat a curry from Dennis Nielsen. Nor would you want to be a hospital patient when Jimmy Saville was around. But Von Cosel was seen as mostly harmless. The fake news of the day pinned him as a hopeless old romantic. They put Elena’s do-it-yourself mummified body on display for a visitors to pay a fee to see. The publicity put Key West on the map. It’s quintessential Americana and so the musical gets away with a lot. 

Leading the cast is American actor Wade McCollum as the radiologist and necrophiliac Von Cosel. He’s a song and dance man with the right amount of creepiness to put you at ease before freaking you out. Alyssa Martin as his love interest Elena is disinterested in him in real life and madly in love with him in death.

With book, music and lyrics By Jill Santoriello, book and additional lyrics by Jason Huza, book and original concept by Jeremiah James. And directed Marc Robin, It Happened In Key West is at Charing Cross Theatre until 18 August.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Photos by Darren Bell

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