Oops! Nik Briggs’s big Ben sees his Big Ben showstopper topple over in York Stage’s The Great British Bake Off Musical
NIK Briggs’s York premiere of Jake Brunger & Pippa Cleary’s musical spoof could not be better timed, opening the night after the final to series 16 of Channel 4’s The Great British Bake Off, most notable for the winner’s Showstopper being the largest cake in the show’s history.
It measured 1.2 metres in length, should you be wondering. Nothing is baked on quite that scale beneath York Stage’s tented stage decked in bunting and banter, but more than 50 models of cakes have been made in foam and Polystyrene for Technical Challenges and Showstoppers alike.
‘Bake Off’ is the first musical where the Showstopper meets the show-stopper, drawing the increasingly trim producer-director Briggs back to the boards for his first principal role since Shrek – his 2020 pantomime cow doesn’t count! – to sing two of the peachiest numbers, My Dad (with Eady Mensah’s Lily, his chaperoned daughter) and The Perfect Petit Fours (with Harriet Yorke’s outstanding Gemma).
Stu Hutchinson’s Russell holding court in The Great British Bake Off Musical
Briggs’s widowed Bristol police detective Ben – “the cooking copper” – and Yorke’s Blackpool carer Gemma are two of the eight contestants, each with a back story and motive for competing to be revealed in song, like cutting through a multi-layered cake.
Joanne Theaker’s Babs, thrice married and looking for a fourth, is a lemon-sharp Londoner prone to euphemisms and giving back as good as she gets from Chris Wilson’s droll, Knock Knock joke-telling Phil Hollinghurst (the Paul Hollywood caricature).
Grant McIntyre’s powerfully voiced Dezza is the forceful vegan hipster with a No Butter policy; Alana Blacker’s Francesca is a thirtysomething primary-school teacher, from Bognor via Bologna, bringing her Nonna’s traditional Italian recipes with her.
Joanne Theaker’s Babs on top form in Babs’ Lament, a show-stopper of the musical kind in The Great British Bake Off Musical
In his musical theatre debut, York busker Fredo (Sudeep Pandey) is Syrian-born Wembley teenager Hassan, with his lucky T-shirt and happy-go-lucky demeanour. In scene-stealing mode, York Stage regular Stu Hutchinson’s Russell is an aeronautical engineer, married to Mario, as camp as a tent and determined to apply science and spreadsheets to his experimental bakes.
Amy Barrett’s Izzy, the 21-year-old Cambridge student, is posh and pushy, taking the biscuit for being so ruthlessly determined to win, dreaming of books deals, TV series.
Introducing proceedings, teasing and goading as the heat rises, are Sam Roberts’s Jim and Mary Clare’s Kim (“Mel and Sue, who?”, they say), while Tracey Rae’s bespectacled grand dame Pam Lee fills the Prue Leith slot with polished glitter and nudge-nudge-wink-wink banter.
Having her cake and eating too much of it: Amy Barrett’s win-at-all-costs Izzy, front and centre, where else, in The Great British Bake Off Musical
Brunger and Cleary bring affection, rather more than tension, to the tent, sending up Hollywood’s motorbike riding, Leith’s myriad business deals and love of a tipple in a recipe, and the baking-hot baking conditions that always befall one episode per series.
All the while, the elimination fun and games must be played out, concertinaed largely into one song, Don’t Send Me Home, with ever reducing numbers and ever-changing harmony demands for the diminishing contestants.
Everyone has their solo moment to parade their singing chops, Theaker’s Babs excelling in the pathos of Babs’ Lament and Yorke’s Gemma rising to the occasion in Rise. Wilson’s Hollinghurst and Rae’s Dame Pam have a rather sweet moment in I’d Never Be Me Without You.
Harriet Yorke’s Gemma: Rising to the occasion in Rise
Bubbling away throughout – as the tables disappear one by one, cakes crumble and contestants tumble – is the growing bond of Briggs’s Ben and Yorke’s Gemma, both in slow recovery from loss, to provide the obligatory love interest of the piece. Eady Mensah’s Lily (in a role to be shared with Abigail Hodgson, Ella Laister and Megan Pickard ) is a delightful conduit between them.
In style, Bake Off echoes most closely the humour and musical diversity of Victoria Wood’s patter songs and Tim Firth & Gary Barlow’s Calendar Girls. The underscore music of the TV series filters cleverly through the songs, ranging from big bluesy ballads to Chicago and Cabaret pastiches.
Songs have a tendency to go on too long, to overegg the moment, but the humorous dialogue is well timed under Briggs’s joyous direction and Danielle Mullan Hill’s musical staging is whisked into pleasing shapes.
Bake Off contestants for starters: Stu Hutchinson’s Russell, left, Harriet Yorke’s Gemma, Joanne Theaker’s Babs, Grant McIntyre’s Dezza, Alana Blacker’s Francesca, Nik Briggs’s Ben and Fredo’s Hassan
We know that Edinburgh-born medical student Jasmine Mitchell won the Bake Off glass cake stand on Tuesday, but who triumphs in York Stage’s Great British Bake Off? Not telling, except to say that you’re the winner if you buy a ticket. Hollyhurst/Hollywood handshakes all round for a recipe delivered so creamily.
Iced buns being handed out on the forecourt before the show was the icing on the cake.
York Stage in The Great British Bake Off Musical, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 501935 or josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Well judged performances by Tracey Rea’s Pam Lee and Chris Wilson’s Phil Hollinghurst in The Great British Bake Off Musical