Buried: A New Musical (rating 3/5)
Promising to be ‘darkly comic’ Buried starts off well with a memorable, nicely sung number in which a female serial killer, Rose, goes through a series of first dates that all end in murder. She then meets Harry and the two realise their similarities when they attempt to kill each other.
The first half is pretty funny, especially the sequences where the two are watching a TV show called ‘The Psycho Next Door’ and things move swiftly and amusingly along, helped by some great acting and well integrated musical numbers.
However, somewhere around halfway the show seems to run out of steam. Rose and Harry, who had been killing together as a ‘fake’ couple, break up their partnership.
We then get two overly long songs, in which each character details their sadness, and things grind along much too slowly. The idea of them both being serial killers barely seems to matter any more as it becomes an ordinary relationship drama, which is a shame as the first half promised much more.
The biggest problem is that these two characters never come across as being true psychos or serial killers. There are efforts at exploring the psychology of such people, but they are very shallow and work best comedically because of this.
The Colla Voce Theatre performers all do a tremendous job, and the show definitely has very high points that make it worth seeing, but it could have been darker, funnier, and tighter.
Buried is at Underbelly, Bristo Square, on various dates until 27 August
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