Review of the parody show subtitled Or a Legally Blonde Pretty Woman Dirty Danced on the Beaches While Writing a Notebook on the Titanic

You may have noticed that romcoms tend to be formulaic and morally dubious, with storylines that crumble under even the gentlest logical analysis. The creative team behind Six Chick Flicks… certainly have, affectionately mocking the genre’s familiar tropes but not delving too much beyond the superficial.

For example, there’s a running joke about the door at the end of Titanic being plenty big enough for both Jack and Rose, a view surely any fan will know by now, 27 years after the film’s release. 

Performers KK Apple and Kerry Ipema are certainly efficient and engaging when précising the decades-old romantic blockbusters. Sometimes the shtick seems over-rehearsed, but that may be an inevitability when condensing their subjects – Pretty Woman, Beaches, Legally Blonde, The Notebook and Dirty Dancing, as well as Titanic - into tight, bite-sized chunks.

TJ Dawe, who wrote the show with Ipema, has a track record of summarising commercial hits on stage, having been behind solo interpretations of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Stranger Things and many more, so he knows what he’s doing. But while blockbuster brand recognition brings audiences to shows such as this, the satirical engine behind Six Chick Flicks is underpowered.  

Coining ‘The Rose Effect’, in which a romcom woman only realises her true potential or beauty after a man notices it, is a decent point. But too often, the humour and analysis amount to nothing more than  topping a plot summary with a line of sarcasm such as: ‘The ethics of this are not questionable at all!’ or - in the case of Pretty Woman – ‘what an accurate depiction of sex work!’

The show gets stuck in other repetitive jokes, too, such as trilling: ‘montage!’ before every act-out. Almost every time we meet a character, the duo reference other films the actor has been in. Julia Roberts’ Pretty Woman character muses that she might like to move to Notting Hill, become a lawyer to fight in a groundwater case or maybe turn to robbing casinos, while Patrick Swayze is described as ’so handsome he’d even look good as as ghost’ and so on and so on. But a reference is not the same as a joke.

More potential is shown when the pair break their formula, such as Ipema offering a personal story about watching The Notebook when on her period – a welcome and funny look behind the performative veneer.

A big gear change to make a serious, but brief, point about the effects of overturning Roe vs Wade on American women’s health breaks the otherwise relentlessly trivial mood. However valid the point, it won’t be telling many people what they don’t already know, and is a definite downer.

In what seems like the padding out of an hour-long show into a touring prospect, much of the second half is dedicated to contributions from the audience. The ‘meet cutes’ shared tonight are strangely flat – and probably ought to have been vetted for dullness beforehand.

Punters are also invited to suggest chick flicks they’d like to see condensed. The stars’ ability to improvise is more than decent – and they had much fun at mangling Heath Ledger’s Australian accent when whizzing through 10 Things I Hate About You – but again they tend to retread the same gags about the same tropes. 

Admittedly, I’m not the target audience for this, having not even seen all the films referenced, so a prosecco-swigging girls’ night out crowd would surely get more from it. After all, no show that ends by recreating Dirty Dancing’s (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life routine will ever be all bad.

• Six Chick Flicks... Or a Legally Blonde Pretty Woman Dirty Danced on the Beaches While Writing a Notebook on the Titanic is on tour until June. Tour dates

Review date: 2 May 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: ArtsDepot