There are some shows at the Edinburgh Fringe that feel they are crafted for the room above a pub, a pop-up venue, or a tent in an urban square. Then there are shows which make you wonder why on earth they are here. The Real Kyle McCarren is one of the latter.
This new musical from American creators Andy Roninson and Sean McVerry is making its UK debut, telling the story of Kyle McCarren – a musician, among other traits, who, rather inconveniently for the purposes of the narrative, is dead.
Kyle was Andy’s best friend and bandmate, and, when a highly neurotic composer loses his best mate, apparently the obvious thing to do is write a musical about him. There is, however, a problem. Kyle was complicated. Endearing and enraging in almost equal measure. Dead he may be, but he isn’t about to let Andy off the hook. What follows is part musical theatre, part live concert, part comedy and, perhaps, part séance. Kyle, who possesses Sean McVerry as his on-stage avatar, makes this work beneath the jokes and the brilliantly constructed musical numbers. The complicated business of remembering someone you loved, even when they drove you absolutely mad, is the substance of this performance.
This is an exercise in meticulous, choreographed performance, delivered with such precision that it feels as though it is improvised in front of us. The cast are clearly serious about their acting. They inhabit these characters rather than simply perform them, and the story is delivered with the ease of people who have been telling it for a lifetime – yet, of course, they have been together for hardly longer than the run. They sing, play, move and hit the comic beats with extraordinary accuracy. The cast all have their spotlight moments, but Andy and Sean are true super-troopers for the LED generation.
Roninson and McVerry have created songs that craft in a couplet lines that might take an ordinary mortal like me several paragraphs to explain. Their compositions capture the peculiar intimacy of a band that means absolutely nothing to the rest of the world, but means absolutely the world to those who were in it. For me, those lines were where the show became rather more than a musical comedy about an annoying dead bloke. This is a life story, as remembered by someone who was there. Kyle is not presented as some sanitised saint whose death has conveniently removed all his faults. He was an asshole. But he was their asshole.
The result is a character who can make you laugh, irritate you, and break your heart – sometimes within the same scene. A dry eye in the house was not likely. Its emotional punch comes precisely because it refuses to pretend that grief is a tidy process. Memories are messy. Friendships are messy. People are messy, and sometimes the things we complained about most are precisely the things we miss when they are no longer there to complain about. What would you give to have it back – especially if it’s a loved one.
This feels like good old-fashioned performance – the sort of show that deserves a much bigger stage. Don’t be surprised if the next step for The Real Kyle McCarren is a West End theatre on the Strand, or for that matter, a Broadway engagement.
There is serious pedigree behind it, too. Avalon has already been associated with productions including Jerry Springer: The Opera and Operation Mincemeat, and the musical has gone through development in New York, including a Rhinebeck Writers Retreat residency, a sold-out Joe’s Pub concert and a workshop presentation. Ultimately, though, none of that matters once the lights go down. What matters is that the show works. It works because it is funny. It works because it is exceptionally performed. It works because the music is good, and it works because somewhere underneath the cleverness is a very simple and very human story about two friends, one of whom has gone away and the other who isn’t quite ready to let him.
Kyle may be dead, but for 75 minutes at the Pleasance Courtyard, he is very much alive. He’ll be resurrecting at 1:50pm, every day until 30 August. The asshole even got a standing ovation.
