Here Lies Love review, Dorfman Theatre

So Fat Boy Slim's written a musical? Well let me praise him like I should... First of all, he's not entirely to blame for this total dog's breakfast, a musical about Imelda Marcos, first lady of the Philippines and hoarder of shoes. That credit goes to Talking Heads' David Byrne who apparently wanted to explore 'how powerful people remake themselves'. With FBS's beats driving the score - half the audience is standing to facilitate dancing should the urge arise - Here Lies Love does not actually show us the remaking of Imelda. It disingenuously stops at the point she and her dictator husband, Ferdinand, went into exile in 1986 after the People Power uprising. She has since returned and is powerful in her own right as an MP.

Putting the smaller detail aside... The image we have of Marcos is the 3000 pairs of shoes she hoarded during her time at the top, an image that elegantly sums up what was wrong with the couple's 'reign' in a country of abject poverty. Alas, shoes do not get a look-in in Here Lies Love. The gorgeous Natalie Mendoza plays Imelda with style and energy in the same pair of uplifted court shoes in an ugly shade of nude, for the whole show. Indeed, so much is spent on the movable stages in the newly named Dorfman space at the National Theatre (previously the Cottesloe) that there was clearly very little left for costumes. While the few top dollar dresses she wears are nice enough, there isn't a single wow moment. And the shoes... oh what a disappointment.

And yet and yet, is Here Lies Love so bad it's good?  The setting is a club with the largest mirror ball ever seen. Good. Quite why the politics of the Philippines are set in a club is unclear - it may be an homage to the country's high quality ladyboys, but they're as absent as the shoes. Bad. The standing audience, who'd paid £40 a head for the opportunity to shake a leg, looked tired. Bad. Some free Es halfway through may have helped. That said, when, at the end, Imelda steps out of character to introduce the most terrible acoustic song built around the verbatim comments of the newly liberated people of the Philippines, it is the theatrical equivalent of a near-death experience. We tripped anyway. Good.

In conclusion: If you like FBS and love a club beat, Here Lies Love is worth a look. David Byrne's songs are largely ok, and the concept dazzlingly bizarre. Love was the least apparent quality in the musical, ditto dramatic tension, but Mark Bautista is a sizzlingly sexy Ferdinand Marcos and Gia Macuja Atchison as Estrella Cumpas (don't ask) sings like a dream.

References:
Here Lies Love, Dorfman Theatre, Tickets


Dorfman Theatre, National Theatre, South Bank, London SE1 9PX.   Run ends 8 Jan 2015