{"id":693716,"date":"2026-07-15T22:00:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693716\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T22:00:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:00:33","slug":"hit-machine-review-slick-music-biz-drama-strikes-too-many-false-notes-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/693716\/","title":{"rendered":"Hit Machine review \u2013 slick music biz drama strikes too many false notes | Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

On paper, writer Jonathan Caren\u2019s Hit Machine has all the makings of a chart-topping smash. Featuring the London stage debuts of Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and Noah Galvin (Dear Evan Hansen), with direction from Daniel Bailey (Red Pitch<\/a>) and music by Grammy-winning bluesman Ben Harper, the three-hander tackles the topics of masculinity, appropriation and buried family trauma through the prism of the creative process.<\/p>\n

Set in the louche, soft-furnished home of music mogul Wes (Radnor), the play begins promisingly. Wayward younger brother Alex (Galvin) arrives and throws a plaid-shirted bomb into Wes\u2019s carefully manicured and minimalist life. We begin to see how each sibling plays their role in the strained family dynamic: Wes the high-achiever on the hedonic treadmill always striving for more, and Alex the sprightly yet secretive youngster striving only for approval.<\/p>\n

Music is of course important \u2013 the source of Wes\u2019s success as a label boss but also the medium through which the brothers bonded during their difficult childhood years \u2013 and the making of it is magical and instantaneous in the universe of the play. Armed with a keyboard and laptop, the brothers tap a few keys like cyber-hackers in an early 2000s thriller and suddenly beats come to life.<\/p>\n

Much-needed intrigue \u2026 Radnor with Khalil Madovi as Defy the Leader. Photograph: Bautista Araya<\/p>\n

The tone is largely domestic and rooted by Bailey\u2019s unpretentious direction. Yet when Caren\u2019s script begins to inject more drama, the engaging realism soon falls apart. Galvin veers from playing Alex with the ebullience of an excitable eight-year-old to crazed mania, while Radnor switches from being fatherly to loathing. The audience are given reasons for these moodswings but the solutions feel singular and straightforward, rather than digging into the messy, often contradictory complexity of childhood trauma.<\/p>\n

Khalil Madovi\u2019s brief appearance as Wes\u2019s new signee Defy the Leader brings some much-needed intrigue, except his discussion of the societal expectation placed on Black men in the public eye again touches on a fascinating subject without probing its depths, and lands as an afterthought.<\/p>\n

Hit Machine is ultimately a show about music without much music at all \u2013 only one song is performed in its entirety \u2013 and it is a text about weighty themes which it is too eager to resolve rather than allowing its drama to be properly felt and earned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On paper, writer Jonathan Caren\u2019s Hit Machine has all the makings of a chart-topping smash. Featuring the London…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-693716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}