StageDoor

A West End transfer that seems to be piggybacking on the success of Six, but that lacks all of the ingredients that made Six appealing. I thought that the story would be focused on sisterhood and self-actualization, but it gives the audience the exact opposite. It betrays its own conceit of being a story that's centered on Juliet only, and delivers a traditional romcom narrative that obsesses over Juliet's romantic prospects and doesn't develop her character outside of that. It also gestures at "girl power" through the inclusion of songs like Since U Been Gone and Stronger, but is never interested in exploring who Juliet even is outside of a romantic relationship - which should have been the point of this musical. I don't hate jukebox musicals like a lot of other theater fans but considering all its other faults, the fact that this is a jukebox musical to me is an indication of the true goal of this show: to have as broad of an appeal as possible without having anything meaningful to...