‘Is this show a legal minefield? Yes it is. But on we go.” So begins musical comedy duo Flo & Joan’s One Man Musical, a fringier-than-fringe venture placing Andrew Lloyd Webber centre-stage in his own autobiographical show. Is mixing it with all the commies and hippies now assembled in Edinburgh a sign that Lord LW is desperate for a break? Not a bit of it, insists the Cats man, who posits his “show about me!” as just another triumphal hero’s journey to place alongside those of Evita, Joseph and Jesus Christ.
Ah, but is it really “a show about me” – or a show about him? Authorship is the source of much meta-theatrical deviousness in One Man Musical, of which Lloyd Webber (George Fouracres) insists he is auteur, and who the hell are these two upstart women at a keyboard and drumkit behind him? It’s a winning concoction, that leads the famous Tory and buster of West End blocks all through his wild days, his mad existence – to a place, finally, where Lin-Manuel Miranda (a name that remains amusingly beyond Lloyd Webber’s grasp) is king and ALW’s popular touch is starting to look a bit clumsy.
