Review: ADAM & EVE... AND STEVE, King's Head Theatre

Adam, a little bemused and very Welsh, ponders his new friend Steve, who likes Adam - a lot - but Adam isn't so sure, especially when Eve turns up and the menage-a-trois proves as problematic in Eden as it would be in Swindon. It's all the fault of Beelzebub who, when he's not having a pop at the Kardashians, is stirring it, still smarting after his rejection by God. At one points Adam almost throws his lot in with Steve (the relationship to be consummated by a trip to Ikea, natch) but eventually hooks up with Eve and the rest is, well, history.

Chandler Warren's book is an amusing enough parody of a story with which we're all familiar and, if there was just a few too many pantoesque anachronistic asides for my liking, it rolls along at a merry pace under director Francesca Goodridge. Joseph Robinson is winningly handsome as the er... straight man, Adam, while Dale Adams gets more of the laughs as a high camp Steve. Hayley Hampson has a lot of fun as a feisty, funny Eve - pretty much direct from Aintree Races Ladies Day - and Stephen McGlynn spends most of his time devilishly plotting with the audience and bickering with Michael Christopher's God. Beelzebub and God's song and dance number does have plenty of Mel Brooks and Laurel and Hardy in it, and they're not bad inspirations!

The real strength, and weakness, of the show are the songs. Warren's excellent lyrics are given musical life by some wonderful tunes from Wayne Moore, but they need a lot more than Dean Austin's lone piano and, I regret to say, they need stronger singing voices to interpret them. In fringe venues like this, the singing really, really matters and, while Hampson occasionally lets a little belt sneak through, the guys are just too reticent and too one-pitched to give full value to wit and invention of a super score.

In the end, the show is a bit of a missed opportunity, which is a shame, since its fundamentals are sound (though a few more jokes would help). The King's Head Theatre has seen some extraordinarily ambitious boutique operas and musicals over the last ten years or so - perhaps a little of that confidence will rub off on this production later in the run.

Adam & Eve... and Steve continues at the King's Head Theatre until 29 April.