The Fantasticks

Two innocents go on a journey, suffer and return home sadder but wiser. It works for me in Candide and Into the Woods. So why don't I care for the world's longest running musical? I think it's the lack of self-awareness. I find the father's plot so unpleasant and the lovers so ill-suited to each other that their sincere act two duet rings as hollow as the satirical act one duet. The original production charmed audiences for 42 years so I've had to accept I'm simply not the target audience. I haven't experienced the things the show feels nostalgic for. I can not remember so I can not follow.

Still, it did give us Jerry Orbach.

Promises, Promises

Okay so it's not really a holiday musical but it does have the song Turkey Lurkey Time.

Billy Wilder's The Apartment and the musical adaptation Promises, Promises fall into the genre of dark romantic comedy. It's boy meets girl with a villain in the way but this time the boy is self loathing and the girl is suicidal. The corporate setting makes it a creepy cousin to the peppier How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. 

The brittle film has held up better than the sentimental musical. It was a hit in 1968. Bacharach's sound was fresh and the gender politics slightly less dated. When the show was revived on Broadway in 2010 the critics found Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth's natural liveliness was undercut by the hangdog roles. The 2017 London revival faced similarly mixed reviews.

Fortunately act two is perked up by the arrival of Marge, a flirty alcoholic. Christine Baranski and Kate Finneran made three course banquets out of her would be seduction of the leading man.