Daddy’s Money Productions and Liam McIntosh Entertainment present Polly!: A 21st Century Love Story! a new musical which had its workshop performance at The Other Palace Theatre on Wednesday 18th February.
With the book by Natalie Durkin and music and lyrics by Joe Tapper (collectively known as Dirks and Tapper) Polly! follows our protagonist of the same name, who struggles to come to terms with her polyamorous identity. When a wedding invite allows her to let her family know who she really is, a series of obstacles, misunderstandings and tense emotional reckonings force Polly to confront what love, especially for yourself, really means.
The musical explores important themes of how polyamory is received in the 21st century: as a notably ancient practice in itself, its reception reflects how queerness can be marginalised and othered, which Polly spends the musical trying to reckon with. Polly! especially explores the personal and emotional ramifications of social rejection, as she tries to please everyone but herself. The creative team emphasised the importance of centring queer stories and opening up the capacity of queer characters to take up space: joyful, witty, messy, and everything in between.
The workshop showed the book and lyrics of the musical in its early stages, and encouraged dialogue and feedback between the audience and the creative team. Polly was played by Natalie Durkin, with the rest of the cast including Mark Anderson, Martin Callaghan, Adam Colbeck-Dunn, Danielle Coombe, Claudia Kariuki, Molly Lynch and Aaron Lee Lambert, and directed by Amy Anders Corcoran. Each actor contributed to the complex piece, playing multiple roles and filling the small stage with the spirit of each scene.
Potentially the first musical written about polyamorous identity, Polly! has the familiar conventions of contemporary musical theatre, with an edge that is no doubt in bloom. The workshop performance had a kind, supportive atmosphere where the musical’s personality was allowed to shine. As the writing duo signposted in the programme, the road to writing a new musical is not easy, and Polly! has been through numerous rewrites and iterations, and has seen audiences as far back as 2023.
Debuting a musical is ‘becoming itself’ is a message that pleasantly parallels the very story they are telling. Encouraging dialogue and embracing the bumpiness of the creative process struck me as an especially important practice: one that enables new work to keep going and reach audiences. With the amount of support in the room, we can only hope to see Polly! emerging even stronger in its next iteration.