Loserville!

Loserville was everything it promised to be and more!

Kate Weston and I absolutely loved the show.  It has closed at West Yorkshire Playhouse now, but I am certain that this not the last we will see of it!

It was a very well picked cast, starring Gareth Gates as Eddie Arch.  I was stunned by Gareth, who was utterly brilliant and really carried off being the baddie of the show.  Other names I recognised were Li'l Chris who made his name in Rock School,  Eliza Hope Bennet who I recognised from Nanny McPhee and Inkheart and Sarah Watson from X Factor 2011, but many of this wonderful cast had only just finished drama school.  The band were also very young and amazingly talented.

I loved the shows design from Francis O'Connor, brilliantly using the internal image of a computer for the moveable set and in complete contrast everything else is created by notebooks and pencils, reminding us about what life was like before internet and emails.

I love the way that the composer and book writer met and created the show:

Elliot Davis (book, music & lyrics) met James Bourne (book, music & lyrics) on a tennis court. Despite coming from opposite ends of the music industry, the pair discovered a connection through composer Lionel Bart. Davis had begun his career as Bart's assistant. In his pre-Busted days, an 11-year-old Bourne had starred in the title role of Oliver! at the London Palladium. Bourne introduced Davis to the album Welcome to Loserville, released by his post-Busted project, Son of Dork. "To my ears, the songs were like compact, three-minute dramas," Davis says. "I heard all these characters and narratives and said, 'Have you ever considered turning this into a musical?'


The rest is history!