Review: LIVE TO TELL: (A PROPOSAL FOR) THE MADONNA MUSICAL, Omnibus Theatre

What's in a title? Live To Tell: (A Proposal For) The Madonna Musical is an intriguing mouthful currently being staged at Omnibus Theatre in Clapham. An autobiographical piece, it acquaints its audience with Brian, an eccentric American writer living with HIV. As per the name of the play, he is also frantically putting together a pitch for a musical using Madonna's discography, a project he fears is being impeded by his current medication.

This is what Brian Mullin's play is really about: a writer grappling with his faltering creative process in the face of lingering trauma. A contemporary dialogue about living with HIV feels both refreshing and important. While the various theatrical epics which chart the 80s era epidemic retain their value, they offer little insight into the experience of people living the modern, undetectable virus.

But even if the central narrative is an interesting one, there is the worry some ticketholders may feel duped. Though it may be an ingenious marketing ploy, Mullin's eye-catching title also breeds expectation and while this play is many things, it is certainly not the campy jukebox musical some may have mistaken it for.

Of the show, Mullin has confessed that it is not so much about Madonna as what she symbolises, drawing inspiration from her enduring tenacity. In fact, The Queen of Pop is sprinkled throughout the piece, with her songs occasionally featured and recordings of her speaking voice recreated by the comedian and impressionist Nadya Ginsburg.

Mullin's greatest asset is his own effervescent charisma, he is instantly endearing and becomes passionately emotive when needed. Mullin plays what is described as a self-inspired role while Dan de la Motte morphs between a variety of supporting characters including his agent, boyfriend and an online hookup. Like the latter, de la Motte displays tremendous versatility.

Much like the artist it namedrops, Mullin's play frequently reinvents itself, with a shifting and adaptive tone that journeys far from the easy comedy it finds at the start as Brian pitches his musical to the pop icon, eagerly noting the importance of their shared Catholic upbringing. Near its conclusion, the play has become abstract, its relationship to reality vague. A sense of hysteria is effectively instilled but it comes with a side-effect: it's dizzyingly confusing.

Various moments would be more meaningful given richer context, these are the scenes which director Deirdre McLaughlin never quite makes sense of. Many questions, such as the early assertion that Brian isn't actually a Madonna superfan, go unaddressed and in place of a crystalising moment that provides revelatory insight to Mullin's unravelling is a brief, fourth wall breaking epilogue between the two actors.

What Brian Mullin has produced is evidently no Madonna musical, but a blisteringly raw and touchingly vulnerable exploration of his own compelling story. With some refinement to what feels like a promising draft, this play has the capacity to be both genuinely affecting and entertaining. It may yet live up to its name.

Live To Tell: (A Proposal For) The Madonna Musical is at the Omnibus Theatre until 18 February

Photo Credit: Harry Elletson

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