Once, Phoenix Theatre **

David Hunter and Jill Winternitz in Once

Coming out of the theatre after seeing Once, I walked down Shaftesbury Avenue, past Les Mis and Curious Incident and then down to Haymarket, where people were coming out of Phantom of the Opera and Great Britain. All in the West End for varying amounts of time but all fantastically popular because on one level or another, they provide the audience with emotional impact. This is the thing I sensed missing from this show. I greatly admire it's ambition. It's set, whilst done similarly and more effectively in Billy Elliot, has a lot of beauty to it and the idea to have mirrors surrounding it, making each detail of these people's lives visible to the audience, is ingenious. The songs, despite my indifference to folk music, are quaint and pretty, although none stick out. The actors/ musicians are fantastic too. However, I could never engage with that main plot line. Two subplots, namely the gay, untalented banker and the housemate looking for a job, interested me far more than what was, frankly, a boring romance drama. Perhaps my view on this piece was slightly tainted by the person in front of me filming throughout but, to be honest, I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it any more if she had not been there at all. It comes to no surprise to me that clearly Once has not been performing well at the Box office and set to close next year.

Side note: With Ronan Keating coming in to play the role of Guy in a few weeks time, I would say that it is highly inappropriate for any celebrity to play one of the main roles in this production. You are seeing the events totaly detached from the situation. This is primarily because you do not find out either of the lead's real names.Therefore, having a celebrity, whether it be Arthur Darvill or Ronan Keating in the role of someone who is supposed to be anonymous defeats the point of this musical as the audience will come in with a biased opinion and a name to Guy or Girl which, whether for better or for worse, distorts the original intentions of the playwright.