Review: Grim at the Charing Cross Theatre

Grim: A New Musical

Charing Cross Theatre

Reviewed on Tuesday 5th August 2014

★★

With an excellent concept and strong creative team, I was intrigued to see Grim. 

Grim (as in Reaper) heads to a school on Earth to try and understand why humans are so devastated by death. When she's there she makes friends with loner Amelia and falls for Cupid... but it will all end in tears.

Walking into the theatre we were surrounded by hooded cloaked figures who (ironically) looked like Death Eaters. Despite being slightly creepy, it set the scene for the Hogwarts choir on stage where we first meet Grim (Roseanna Christoforou).

Christoforou has a nice singing voice, but she's let down by her lack of personality. Presumably she's playing Grim as a serious character, but her expression doesn't change and her portrayal lacks any sort of emotion. Although this could be construed as how the Grim Reaper would be, when she's with Cupid (Anthony Matteo) I would have expected some form of enthusiasm.

Matteo doesn't really come across as the sex symbol he supposedly is andstruggles with some of the higher notes in the song 'She Said Yes'. His voice is also not quite as strong as Christoforou, which is all too obvious in their duets.

Georgi Mottram (Amelia) is perhaps the strongest performer in this production, she plays Amelia with an innocent charm. She and Christoforou have a similar relationship to Glinda and Elphaba (the song 'Friends for Life' reminded me of 'For Good' in Wicked).

The songs are not as memorable as one would hope, but listening to the soundtrack afterwards - although some of the lyrics are a little cringy (yes, Cupid rhymes with stupid) - they do improve and Joseph Alexander's composition is fantastic.

The music for 'The Only Certainty in Life is Death' (complete with lots of chants of "Death!") reminds me of Prokofiev's 'Dance of the Knights' and as an instrumental piece would be incredibly powerful. The same is true of 'Because I Am Evil/Bring The Magic' which has all of the qualities of a John Williams piece.

Fiona O'Malley has taken on a strong concept but unfortunately it doesn't quite work. It's never completely clear if Cupid is actually the God of Love or just unfortunate in his parents' choice of name. The school setting leads to many awkward moments, with its (not very convincing) cool clique, teachers and dances - not to mention the general school lingo!

Grim definitely has potential, but needs a slight rewrite, more rehearsal time and a few cast changes.

Reviewed by Michaela Clement-Hayes

Grim: A New Musical runs at the Charing Cross Theatre until Saturday 30th August 2014.
Please visit www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk for further information and tickets.

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