No budget? That’s no problem for this goofy, feel-good romp

MUSICAL THEATRE
GUTENBERG! THE MUSICAL!
Hayes Theatre, April 15
Until May 10
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★½

For those of you reading this on a screen, and who didn’t know there was another way, about 586 years ago, a German bloke named Johannes Gutenberg shook things up with a device called a printing press.

While this did a thorough job of putting the clerical longhand copyists out of business, his printed books helped foster literacy and they spread ideas, which were germane to fostering the Renaissance.

So, his was about as big a contribution to our world as one can make, or – how shall I put this for the screen-addicted? – up there with the inventors of Facebook and TikTok.

Not your usual subject matter for a musical, then – or even for a musical within a musical, as this is, written by Anthony King and Scott Brown in 2005. Doug (Stephen Anderson) and Bud (Ryan Gonzalez) are two aged-care workers who’ve penned the titular musical, and they are presenting it to an audience in the hope of attracting a Broadway producer.

Because they have no budget, they play the avalanche of characters themselves, delineating them with names on baseball caps. They are accompanied only by Charles (musical director Zara Stanton) on piano, so, in the grand scheme of musicals, it’s as cheap as chips to mount.

Richard Carroll’s production, with every “i” dotted and “t” crossed, adds up to a fun night out, not so much because of the music – I can’t imagine ever thinking, “I must play Gutenberg! The Musical! ”– as because it’s intermittently very funny, and Anderson and Gonzalez expertly ensure no laughs go begging.

Indeed, they compound the humour with the exaggeratedly precise singing, visual gags and execution of Shannon Burns’ intrinsically amusing choreography.

Given the show within the show is set up as amateurish, much of the comedy doesn’t rely on story or characters, so much as the solutions to no-budget staging, from the hats to a stuffed cat, cardboard boxes as a bucket and the printing press, and a stepladder for a tower.

Intermittently, Doug and Bud step out of character to explain what’s going on, why certain songs are in the show when they don’t seem to belong, or the mechanics of musicals.

“A motif,” Doug tells us, “is when you use the same piece of music over and over again, but it’s not lazy.”

It’s worth going just to see the singing rats, or Gonzalez’ evil Monk (who doesn’t want the hoi polloi able to read the Bible, so he can falsify its contents), or Stephenson playing Helvetica, Gutenberg’s love interest and font inspiration.

Often it seems more geared for nine-year-olds rather than adults in its cartoonishness. It’s also zany, satirical, goofy, quaintly folksy and warm-hearted, and the design elements are as sharp as the performances, directing, accompaniment and choreography.

Just don’t expect to go home whistling any of the tunes.

MUSIC
ITZY
TikTok Entertainment Centre, April 19
Reviewed by MICHAEL RUFFLES
★★★½

Of the several waves of K-pop artists to hit our shores of late, Itzy provide the kind of conditions that can be enjoyed for a couple of hours without fear of crashing into anything dangerous.

The five-member girl group may lack the star power of Blackpink or the theatricality of Ateez, but the group has carved out a niche with snappy songs and catchy choreography built around themes of young love and empowerment.

They open the shows on their third world tour, Tunnel Vision, with the recent single of the same name: a hip-hop laden dance number built as much for the gym as the club.

The safety in paint-by-numbers continues with the defiant Girls Will Be Girls and the uplifting Wannabe, both verging on the anthemic but wrapped in bubblegum.

Variety is never far away. Walk is a distant cousin to Vogue, while the lovey-dovey trio Supernatural, Nocturne and Imaginary Friend are less Madonna and more M2M (if you remember them).

The five bring the sultry and seductive along with the sweet. They work well together, with at least a dozen back-up dancers, although bleached-blonde band leader Yeji and chief rapper/main dancer Ryujin steal some of the focus and are blessed with extra star quality.

This is reinforced with the solos. Lia’s Asylum is pretty if imperfectly executed; Yuna’s Tangerine is fun if not especially memorable; Yeji’s perky Pocket shows off her assets as an all-rounder; Chaeryeong’s Undefined emphasises dancing over singing; Ryujin’s Look is the most unabashed fun.

For Act III, Itzy goes country – but think Kylie more than Lee Kernaghan as they set up a saloon to dance around in. The highlights are That’s A No No, which has found viral success after first emerging on an EP in 2020 thanks to a new dance, and the crazy-in-love Loco.

For the encore, Itzy speed runs through some fan favourites and introduce the glitchy and discombobulated 8-bit Heart. It does not amount to anything more or less than the sum of its parts, although all the bits are fun. The same could be said of the show.