REVIEW: ‘Supersonic Man’ @ Southwark Playhouse

Strange to travel from Brighton to London to see a gay musical set in … well, Brighton.

With its seaside postcard backdrop (the always inventive designer David Shields), and plastic seagulls gliding up and down, I felt at home.

Writer/director Chris Burgess has created a darkly comic tale of terminal illness faced up to with humorous determination by our hero, gay columnist Adam (Dylan Aiello).

The show starts with gym bunnies, Adam and his school teacher partner Darryl (Dominic Sullivan), who are soon joined by gym newcomer and future threesome partner Ben (James Lowrie).

But almost immediately this queer athleticism is overshadowed when Adam starts to lose the feeling in his toes. So begins his slow decline with motor neurone disease, but his equal desire to fight back: “screw your reality” he tells a negative doctor.

With the help of Ben, now his PR and social media manager, friends Ruth (Jude St James) and Shaz (Mali Wen Davies), they devise a reality TV show to broadcast his plight and the battle to find adaptive technology that can help him – like an exo-skeletal suit and voice reproduction.

And so Supersonic Man – BAFTA nominated – is born. It’s a witty, thoughtful piece of chamber musical theatre that can’t seem to settle on a musical style, relying instead on pastiche and parody – all brilliantly translated by MD and orchestrator Aaron Clingham.

Richard Lambert’s carefully crafted and always sensitive lighting follows the mood swings of the piece, its dialogue and song and dance numbers.

The confined space at Southwark Playhouse’s smaller venue The Little means Philip Joel’s choreography is of necessity largely circular in motion but nonetheless full of energy and purpose.

As Adam, Dylan Aiello is mesmerising, with his fixed grin and mostly sparkling eyes, he fills the stage with his energy and his anger, shock, depression, meds-induced manic highs and depressive lows, but never subsiding into denial. It’s a stunning performance.

As his long-suffering partner Darryl, Dominic Sullivan often is a subsidiary character but in a breathtaking musical confessional number he breaks free and his singing range is beautiful.

Making her professional debut, Mali Wen Davies is a funny, feisty, friend, but comes into her own as the cynically manipulative TV producer – we just love to hate her.

When Adam dons his avatar cyber suit, we get a Chorus Line-style closing number, and I put my pen and notebook away, thoroughly satisfied.

Except there’s what I would call a second finale – a kind of Rent/Evan Hansen anthem of hope as they sing “a new way of living”.

Mr Burgess – don’t be greedy: settle on one or the other.

There are rough edges which need polishing, and some repetition to remove, but it’s altogether a pleasing and exhilarating evening. Oh and one character tells us there are 43 gay bars in Brighton – if only!

Supersonic Man is a Lambco Production at Southwark Playhouse until 3 May – tickets HERE