REVIEW: The Music of Havkin & Stimler, Circle & Star

At the new but fast becoming established-Circle and Star Theatre in Hampstead, The Music of Havkin & Stimler had the feeling of one of those insider evenings audiences later boast they attended before everyone else caught on.

Stimler is already something of a theatre IT girl, regularly spotted at first nights, usually arm-in-arm with the lead actor, director or producer – but this evening was all about the work itself  and particularly the comic partnership between her lyrics and Havkin’s warm, melodic scores.

The show introduced songs from their four developing musicals: The Attic, Change of Heart, The Five Wives & Lives of Melvyn Pfferberg and Strings Attached.

There is somewhat of a Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Tim Minchin energy to Stimler’s neurotic observational witty lyrics – and I wish I’d written down more of her priceless lines. Interestingly Stimler is currently undertaking a PhD specialising in “the mechanics of comedy in musical theatre performance” which sounds gloriously niche until you realise how hard comedy musicals are to pull off well. The Jewish tradition of humour-as-survival runs right through her songs and Havkin, seated at the piano throughout, supplied tunes that carried hints of Broadway. Think Lerner and Loewe served as chicken soup with a saucy side of knishes.

My favourite extracts came from Change of Heart, built around ridiculous premise of a curmudgeonly man who receives the transplanted heart of a failed Broadway performer and suddenly cannot stop singing songs from his flops. As I said, I wish I had taken more notes – but I was enjoying it too much – particularly Hamlet’s Lament, which was delivered with blistering comic frustration by Michael Vinsen as an even more disillusioned Hamlet.

Elsewhere, Block Delete and Move On From The Attic drew laughs for its modern dating-app despair, while Dear Melvyn, Love is Grand and Unbreak My Heart from The Five Wives & Lives of Melvyn Pfferberg — based on the Damian Samuels film of the same name —is Vaudevillian in style and with the tagline  — “Five brides. One time machine. The confetti’s about to hit the fan…” — it’s ripe for any audience and just needs a Nica Burns , Kenny Wax or Sonia Friedman to let it fly.

The cast — including Danny Becker, Kaisa Hammarlund, Michaela Stern, Zac Frieze and Vinsen — all arrived straight from performing or rehearsing elsewhere, leaving no time only for a sound check, though there was not the slightest hint of that in their performance. But this group of belters was handpicked by Stimler who has seen enough shows to know what she wants.

What made the night work was its lack of pretension. It felt less like a formal showcase and more like being at a party thrown by talented hoofers having fun — very Jonathan Larson Tick, Tick… Boom! The Havkin and Stimler musicals may still be finding their full  shape, but parts are already as strong as plenty of shows that have landed on Shaftesbury Avenue stages. Here’s hoping at least one of these very Jewish musicals makes the leap because we need them more than ever. And the West End needs them.