Red Bus Londinium Life

Stalled (a “new musical about mothers, daughters and moving on”) is currently playing at the King’s Head Theatre with Olivier, Tony, and Drama Desk Awards nominee Lauren Ward leading the cast. Set in a classy Seattle ladies’ room, the different relationship woes of four mothers and daughters are explored

The premise is clever. Who hasn’t bared one’s soul in the ladies’ room? There is much to admire but in this current iteration the musical feels too crammed with relationships and there are some problematic issues.

The timeline, for example, doesn’t seem to make sense. In one storyline, a character has time to start a relationship, fall pregnant, worry about being pregnant and lose the baby… Yet in another storyline, only 10 weeks seems to have passed.

I also felt there was an overuse of the f-word. This meant that when Lauren Ward sang a song with repeated, “F*** off, f*** off, f*** off” (quite warranted in her circumstances) the language had already lost its power. If this had been the only swearing it would have had a larger impact.

I was also concerned that self harm was apparently glossed over and the portrayal of sensory issues in autism were also slightly difficult. The initial revelation of Robin’s situation (Rebecca-Jo Hodges) felt somewhat clumsy.

The cast themselves are almost universally strong, especially Lauren Head as Maggie and Regina Co as Kim. Eleven people and live music in such a small space did make it feel crowded at times and no-one except the lead Maggie really had time to tell their story.

Director Vicki Stone has worked hard to pack a lot of story into 90 minutes. Perhaps fewer storylines or more time would enable more depth to those stories that are told.

The set (Emily Bestow) was clever but those seated round to the sides of the auditorium would lose a lot of the in-stall action. We were originally in these seats but FOH kindly moved us.

A new musical is always going to be a risk and I congratulate the Kings’ Head for taking it. A musical exploring maternity in this way is welcome and I feel Stalled will have a future if some of the current issues are examined and improved.