The Other Palace

This all-singing adaptation of the blockbuster 2004 Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore romcom is written by cult US musical comedy duo Steve Rosen and David Rossmer, who have been admirably pragmatic in looking at the source movie and concluding that no, you absolutely cannot do a lot of that stuff in a modestly sized London theatre in 2025. Sandler played Henry, a free-spirited marine veterinarian living in Hawaii, whose somewhat problematic posse of hangers-on including a perpetually stoned native Hawaiian, an assistant whose indeterminate gender was a running joke, plus a walrus and a penguin (not problematic but difficult to replicate on stage thriftily). Big name Broadway director Casey Nicholaw’s world premiere production very wisely ditches basically all of the above, with Rosen and Rossmer’s book reimagining Henry (Josh St Clair) as an improbably successful travel blogger, with no posse at all. He has made his name by hopping between US cities and capturing ‘one perfect day’ in each of them before moving on to the next (often leaving some poor smitten local girl high and dry). Now a lucrative contract to do the same in Europe hoves into view. But he has a final US stop in Florida’s Key Largo to make first. From then it more or less cleaves to the film. In a local diner Henry meets Lucy (Georgina Castle), a winsome, free-spirited young woman who he spends a wonderful, wholesome day with, despite some funny looks from staff and locals. His agent is desperate to get him to...