FRIENDS! The Musical Parody Celebrates Everything We Love About The '90s Sitcom
Oh, my, god! If you love Friends, or even still binge-watch the episodes daily (now on Netflix), this musical is a hilarious heap of nostalgia
From the get-go FRIENDS! The Musical Parody immerses you in the makings of this American sitcom, which was primarily filmed on sound stages in front of a live audience. Of course, in Sunderland Empire, we are the live audience and the set and props (whilst iconic symbols of the show – the orange sofa, purple door etc) are purposefully on pallets and moved by ‘stage crew’ throughout the show, so we always feel like we’re a part of a Friends production.
We join the audience a little sceptical. How easy (difficult!) can it be to condense 10 seasons of a show into a two-hour musical? Well, it’s doable, and the outcome is hilarious. In act one Rachel joins the friends in her wedding dress and quickly her on-off-on again relationship with Ross is referenced (setting up a full song all about that later). Alicia Belgarde is fantastic as Monica, and boasts a West End-worthy voice, particularly prominent in her solo song, I Know.
The funniest moments are the introduction of Monica’s boyfriend Richard (played by Edward Leigh) who is referred to as Tom Selleck (the actor who played Richard) throughout. The highlight though is Gunther’s solo performance of Part of Their Gang, an overly dramatic poke at the fact Gunther (also played by Edward) essentially has next to no dialogue throughout the whole show, to the tune of Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid, because why not, I guess?
In the first act we’re also re-introduced to another classic Friends character, Chandler’s ex Janice, hilariously played Daniel Parkinson who also plays Chandler. He has the audience is fits of laughter in act two for his performance of OMG It’s Janice. The characters’ mannerisms are on-point (particularly Chandler and Phoebe), Rachel’s hair (wig) is so accurate, and the costumes mean each of the six friends are instantly recognisable. We’d argue Joey and Ross are probably the two most difficult characters to nail, but Enzo Benvenuti and Ronnie Burden do a great job.
Act two cleverly begins with the song We Were On a Break, which at this point in the show Ross and Rachel are (or are they?). This song becomes a quick way to throw in the best moments and props that didn’t make it into the rest of the songs – ‘my eyes!’, ‘paper, snow, a ghost’, Gladys, and Pat the Dog, for example. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to reference every moment from across all 10 seasons but this song has a good go at it.
If we thought act one was crazy, act two is bizarre, with Marcel the monkey (a cast member in full costume) getting his own song, as well as Joey’s chick and duck (puppets), and a copyright-free version of Smelly Cat. What is most effective though is that there are jokes upon already existing jokes, and pokes at the actors who played the cast too (mainly Jennifer Aniston and her love life). There’s plenty more we could mention but to truly experience the craziness of this production, we recommend you see it for yourself!
