But it’s Abbott who commands audience sympathy as the lovelorn Helena, so used to being ignored that when the faeries’ love potion turns the tables she’s convinced she’s being pranked. Abbott starred in the ABC sitcom Aftertaste, but unless you saw her as Muriel in the Muriel’s Wedding musical you might not know she has a pop diva’s vocal upper register.
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If the ultimate measure of a good musical is whether you leave the theatre humming songs you’ve never heard before, then The Lovers passes with flying colours. There are more earworms here than a Spotify list packed with Swift, Roan, Carpenter and Rodrigo, and the radio-friendly arrangements are performed by a tight on-stage four-piece.
Director Nick Skubij and his collaborators are dab hands with revolving stages and digitally projected sets, bringing a riot of colour and movement, while the physical and verbal comedy snaps.
Large chunks of Shakespeare’s dialogue remain, but Murphy’s revisions reveal a Shakespearean ear for contemporary idioms: swiping right, DTF, sorry not sorry, friend zone, I’m gonna bounce. This marriage of opposites produces unexpected fireworks. The Lovers is funny, it has killer hooks to burn, and speaks directly to anyone who ever had a heart.
