There's No Business Like It

The tiny theatre, Bread and Circus, in Kensington Market had put on a revival of a 2007 Fringe musical called Funny Business: The Musical. Stuart (Daniel Abrahamson) is the oblivious manager of the Toronto branch of Chime Communications. To boost morale, he decides to hold an employee talent show. Brie (Rachel Brittain), the short and ditzy secretary, and Jack the Intern (Warren Bain), a tongue-tied finance geek share some secret feelings for each other. Meanwhile, the ball-busting Diane (Lindsey Frazier), from Marketing, and the glib lothario Marcus (Kevin McGarry), from Sales, one-up each other in conspicuous consumption while nursing a love-hate relationship. The team-building exercise goes wrong and the backstabbing begins.

It's an amusing little musical with some cute numbers but I can see why it never got the buzz and went mainstream (such as My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding). Although the characters tickle the funny-bone with the depiction of some common office personalities, the story does not actually involve any typical office situations (e.g., interminable meetings, fighting over cubicle space, passive-aggressive sabotage). The songs themselves are competent but the lyrics are, in my opinion, no better than university-level musical theatre. So the actors, although competent at acting and singing, have only shallow characters to inhabit and a sitcom-grade plot to work through.

It's still a fun 1.5 hours of humour and singing. But I paid $15 to see it and that's about the right price.