A Noble Failure?

Simon Cowell's magic touch deserted him for the first time with this lavish £6 million musical, which closed just six weeks after its premiere on 26th March 2014. Written by Harry Hill, with music provided by TV Burp collaborator Steve Jones, this parody up of Cowell's singing contest The X-Factor actually opened to fairly good notice. The Independent's Paul Taylor praised it's"surreal bonkers charm" while Timeout called it "joyously weird". Many critics did call out the one overarching problem with the show - it never landed on a tone. Was it a scathing satire or an affectionate tribute to Simon Cowell's brand of reality entertainment? The fact that Cowell himself produced the venture seemed to suggest it was aiming for the latter.

What is I Can't Sing About?"

Anyone familiar with Hill's brand of comedy could have guessed at the zany nature of the show's structure. I Can't Sing! followed the story of Chenise (Cynthia Erivo), a destitute young girl who lives under a bridge with her talking dog Barlow and somehow ends up on the X-Factor. Around this paper-thin plot were hung a mass of quick sketches, musical numbers and gloriously scaled flights of fancy, such as the set piece which saw Nigel Harmon's Simon Cowell sitting on top of a cloud, lit by deifying burst of sunshine. Among the cast of desperate wannabes, thinly veiled caricatures of Jedward, Louie Walsh and Cheryl Cole added to the pantomime atmosphere.

While the show's pre-production and preview stage was dogged by technical difficulties, it's early closure was still a shock. "We took a punt" admitted Cowell, "and it didn't work out". Still, Hill and Brown's effort was certainly not the disaster it's shortened run might suggest, and might have just succeeded at a smaller venue than the Palladium.