By Rebecca Law

For those looking for a night of entertaining musical entertainment, look no further. Consisting of only two lines of the spoken word and driven otherwise entirely by song, I Sing! does exactly what it says on the tin. For those with children however, beware – Mary Poppins, this isn’t. I Sing! would do well to come with a warning on the packet: this play contains uncomfortable moments of a kapel-clad Hebrew class teacher shamelessly dry-humping parts of the set whilst singing “Fuck me, Heidi, Fuck me” in a fit of unrequited frustration.

Discomfort aside, this is certainly a very entertaining and touching production, which follows the lives of five 20-something New Yorkers as they grapple with the uncertainty of their futures, precariously negotiating the transitory nature of love and life. I Sing! features five articulate, educated young adults whose lives intertwine in a naturally incestuous way, proving, as they say, that even somewhere like New York can be “the biggest little town”.

Before arriving in London, I Sing! had previously played in New York, Chicago and Australia, and now finds itself in the suitably intimate surroundings of the Union Theatre in Southwark, which boasts just four rows of seats. This allows the audience up close and very personal with the action, both the poignant — as cast members blow wispy tendrils of cigarette smoke into their faces — and the downright brazen, as the characters happily prance around the stage in their underwear.

The set is simple, and considering the supposed ages of the characters, a little too reminiscent of a student house. That said, this means there is little to detract or distract from a brilliant, closely observed narrative. For a production that is driven purely by music, I Sing! copes well with the complex nature of human relationships, cleverly capturing aspirations, vulnerabilities, successes and disappointment.

The creators would have us believe that this is the musical equivalent of Sex in the City meets Friends. While the slight over-simplification and stereotyping of the characters does tally somewhat with those of Carrie Bradshaw and Co, the show is, to its credit, more When Harry Met Sally meets This Life.

The characters are Nicky, (Adam-Jon Fiorentino) an investment banker openly bored with his lot; Heidi, (Joanna Ampil) a preppy, self-confessed daddy’s girl who is temping while pursuing her dream of screenwriting; Pepper (Debbie Kurup), a feisty (although ultimately quite vulnerable) man-eater who has wound up “shaking her arse in a cage” for a living; and, Alan, the failed actor-turned-Judaism-teacher and “gay” Charlie, who, it transpires, can never quite decide which side he is playing for. They are for the most part a likeable bunch, if only for the fact that we can so easily recognise parts of ourselves in each.

The performance of the night came from Ampil, who succeeded in singing with both tears in her eyes and while screaming with rage. Credit must also go to Kurup, who has clearly developed a special talent for exercising her vocal chords while simultaneously chewing on a hunk of gum.

As the characters chop and change partners, and chop and change again, I Sing! captures the reality that there is always lust in friendship and that there is always more than one soul-mate out there – that there are, in fact, many – often lurking within the same group of friends.

The play portrays the quarter-life crisis beautifully – the time in no-man’s land following university, when you suddenly realise that your degree doesn’t count for quite as much as you thought it would, up until the point of securing your first job, or at least trying to, when you suddenly realise that everything on which you had previously focussed your attentions – the world of work – is less the golden ticket you had imagined and more a golden cage.

Finally, as with this life stage, we’re left with a satisfactorily open end, the cycle of life to continue uninterrupted, onwards… and quite possibly out of control.