A Little Piece of You

Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Half happy with this show. A concert mixed with a confused story line, parasocial friendship with a popstar and dancers in denim.

It goes without saying Kjersti Long has crafted some fantastic and toe tapping songs for this new atypical musical's European Premiere at the huge, grand Theatre Royal Drury Lane. The piece is focused on mental health, no one is immune and it can affect anyone. Even those you don't expect and this is clearly shown. A huge opportunity to showcase the new musical, at a great venue and in concert for a couple shows. However, were the pieces fully formed to put together the musical's puzzle?

The main character, Britt, is played by Dujonna Gift; who has recently starred as the female lead in the West End transfer of the hit new musical 'Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York'. Britt has a parasocial friendship with popstar 'Sydney Hill' played by song writer Kjersti Long. Following Sydney's suicide, we follow Britt as she struggles with her mental health and her mother 'Shannon' played by well-known singer Mica Paris, how her character is also struggling with her mental health. It brings the two closer and as Britt learns more about her family; she starts to question whether mental health issues may be hereditary.

The show is a rock/pop concert set up mixed with a musical set up, it's set in the home of the family and goes back through the family's past relatives. Many interesting concepts, however so much that the show is like a bag of mixed ideas that the audience find the story line hard to follow and confusing. Sydney Hill is on stage the majority of the show, though she is important to Britt there is no relevance to the rest of the characters and you start to wonder the significance of her being on stage during some of the other characters' moments.

Dujonna Gift is an outstanding musical theatre actress and her voice is out of this world. Her character, 'Britt' is a young girl who is trying to find herself and questions whether school is where she is supposed to be. She is played with a wide range of emotions, as teens typically do, she transitions from mood to mood throughout the piece. Dujonna Gift plays the young teen character well and emphasises each mood. Her thought process is clear and you can see how her life is drastically changed from the passing of her celebrity idol Sydney. Her whole character changes from excitable love of life to questioning and shutting herself off. A clear change in character to show mental heath declining.

Sydney Hill's character brings a rock/pop concert element to the piece, when she sings it turns into a concert set up and Britt stands at the side. You do feel like you are transported to a stadium watching a star perform! Whilst this is interesting, it breaks the show up into parts and makes it feel dis-jointed. Also, Sydney has no relevance to the past characters, just Britt's character. When she is lingering on stage during the mum's scenes and the other characters it does not make sense. Whilst she symbolises mental health issues in Britt's life, she does not in the other characters, so her significance to the rest of the piece is confusing. On the other hand, it was lovely to watch the mother and daughter spend time together and get closer through their love for art. It feels the story and characters needs more attention and exploration.

The use of set was interesting, how they were set in the house for the whole show and this shows an area of mental health and anxiety, where people who struggle with it will spend as much time at home/where they are comfortable as possible. The use of the bedroom, sleep and bed clothes showed how the mother and daughter were in their comfort zone. They changed lighting to show the change in eras as they travel through time, the pattern on the house changed to show the style of the time period they were showing. This helped you understand they were moving through time and the year projected on the back drop, which was an element that is similar to 'Standing at the Sky's Edge' where they use dates changing as part of their set.

A Little Piece of You felt like little pieces of a huge range of ideas that needed narrowing down, it did not feel like a new perspective on mental health and it did not dive deep enough to the characters for the audience to build a connection. It showed how people use medication to treat mental health, not how medication can affect the person, how they might not even help and no knowledge of other ways to treat it; self care, therapy etc. There's so much more to it and everyone does experience mental health issues in their own ways and have their own journeys, the audience did not have the full picture of a mental health journey or how those suffering can get support. For any audience member watching who has no understanding of mental health it would appear medication is the only treatment. That being said, the songs were divine and portrayed a range of emotions. It is extremely impressive that Kjersti Long, at the age of 17 has performed these emotion filled songs that she wrote at the age of 14, they are so catchy and clever. I could not do that when I was 17! The show travelled down a number of different avenues and loses direction. A very long show, with some very loose ends and needs a deeper dive into the characters. Rearrage of some of the puzzle pieces and this could be strong.