EDINBURGH 2023: Review: 2020 THE MUSICAL, Underbelly, Bristo Square

A look back at the height of the Covid pandemic with a sense of humour, 2020 The Musical tells the story of theatre performers Emily (Natasha Mould) and Adam (Tom Watson) as they catch their big career break just in time to watch it fall apart with the first of 2020’s social restrictions and lockdowns.

Inspired largely by Mould’s own experience of 2020 and her career change into care work, the musical has many powerful moments amongst the humour. Within these, there is a palpable sense of fear, isolation, and loss that captures the essence of those darkest moments in lockdown. It brings members of the audience audibly to tears and for a time the weight of what society went through is felt collectively.

Yet it also highlights the efforts of those who worked with the most vulnerable people in society, like the elderly in residential care, to make sure they never felt lonely or lost. It never stays in the difficult moments too long, using comedy to lift the musical back to somewhere more amusing and relatable. (Who doesn’t get that odd sense of nervous apprehension every time they hear the BBC Breaking News alert in a post-2020 world?).

Emily’s storyline as she moves from the stage into social care shows these efforts in detail and offers the most emotion. Mould’s performance is absolutely outstanding, with stunning vocals and seamless transitions between scenes and dance routines. Her portrayal of Emily as someone who finds something meaningful amongst all she’s lost is truly an uplifting take on those long months of Covid lockdown in 2020.

Adam’s character arc is far more comedic than Emily’s, though it had potential for far more emotion. Watson plays this up with intentionally exaggerated facial expressions and gestures, accompanying his exuberant musical numbers about his new job in LIDL, and fits this role nicely. Watson brings consistent laughs from the audience, his delivery of Adam’s infectious joy inescapable and charismatically raucous. There were times, however, where this ran into danger of becoming slightly too over-the-top, especially when sandwiched between scenes that should have carried more emotional weight.

It felt as though Adam existed specifically to stop the musical from becoming too sad or to provide one half of a love story that in itself wasn’t terribly convincing. It would have been nice to see a more three-dimensional approach to Adam’s character development, so he felt like a character in his own right, rather than simply the “love interest” or comic relief. There were plenty of other extremely funny elements (literally every time Oly Britten was on stage as Boris Johnson, for one) throughout that would have carried the humour plenty and given Watson space to explore Adam’s more sensitive side.

The technical execution of 2020 The Musical was exceptional ­– the choreography in particular being a stand-out – and the cast performances were unfalteringly excellent. However, the reluctance to explore the emotional aspects too closely and the thinner character development left it feeling a little wanting beneath the surface. There’s no real build to the romantic storyline and it doesn’t provide any significant humour or emotion not found in other parts of the musical nor does it impact key aspects of the plot.

If 2020 The Musical could strike the right balance of lingering in the emotion without fearing being too depressing, it might make for more of a compelling story. A theatre performer finding temporary employment in LIDL isn’t quite the tale of human resilience one would generally take away from the Covid pandemic, and certainly wasn’t the most resilient parts of Adam either, who went through a lot that was left largely unexplored.

2020 The Musical manages to make the audience bizarrely nostalgic for a time everyone would rather forget, in a way that feels like healing. The humour provided by the representations of Boris Johnson and by some of the musical numbers – the vaccination song may be one of the most original pieces of theatre I’ve seen in the wake of the pandemic, and it was brilliant – was uproariously funny and the technical elements of the production were almost flawless (minus a few sound issues).

It surely must rank as one of the most polished and well-constructed pieces of theatre on show at the Fringe Festival 2023.  

2020 The Musical runs at Underbelly Cowbarn until Aug 27.

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