Whatever you may think Four Felons and a Funeral is going to be when booking the ticket, I can guarantee that it is wildly different than what happens onstage. Whilst the title might suggest a gentle romcom, this show is a deep and complex analysis of grief, relationships and gender, an analysis all the more powerful and brought to the forefront with its simple- yet a little unbalanced- plot.
Small show with a big heart
With book, music and lyrics by Sam Woof and Màth Roberts, Four Felons and a Funeral recounts the story of how Wilf (Jordan Broatch) and Millie (Gabrielle Friedman) steal their friend Charlie’s ashes with the aid of Charlie’s sister Bex (Maddy Maguire), and roping in Millie’s girlfriend, Saz (Rua Barron), on a high-speed journey to scatter Charlier’s ashes.
This musical throws us completely off-kilter from the start, just due to the sheer amount of energy and pace of the show. It’s easy to become lost in the comedy of the plot, but the poignancy of the musical is slowly unwrapped as the show progresses. No two songs are the same, in fact they are so wildly different that they toss us from one emotional state to another. Woof and Roberts create a genuinely beautiful and funny musical about friendship. It’s not easy to establish much of anything in an hour, but Woof and Roberts have’t wasted a single second, lyric or note in each character’s development and song. The lyrics themselves capture each moment whilst also making room for each character to be themselves in the song, which occasionally means that each song becomes a patchwork of interjections, but which brings a lot of comedy to the situation.
The cast take on these colourful and contrasting characters with so much heart; they have such a natural chemistry and banter that leads us to buy into the history between the characters. The characters are just incredibly lovable and because of the structure of the music, each performer is given the chance to shine. Maguire’s rendition of I’m Fine is particularly powerful, as we can feel the weight and grief behind her performance. There is a lot in Broatch's performance as Wilf to unpack, but what really is astonishing is the scene when Wilf voices their thoughts and frustrations to Millie. It’s such an important moment and the quietness of Broatch’s demeanour carries across so much anger and frustration , and altogether creates such an impactful moment, contrasting with how we've up to that point seen Wilf which has been a mixture of not entirely appropriate interjections and a larger than life personality.
Four Felons and a Funeral is a small show with a big heart, and hopefully we will see more iterations of it in the near future. There is room to develop and improve the show, and hopefully Woof and Roberts will have the opportunity to do so.
