Do You Hear the People Sing(Along)

Review by Rowan

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Serving camp realness in Birmingham city centre, Do You Hear the People Sing(Along) offers tunes everyone can sing along to. Die hard theatre fans will love belting out Rent and Cabaret, whilst the more casual fans will adore the songs of We Will Rock You and Sunshine on Leith, all of which can be sung-along to with karaoke screens visible on all three sides of the auditorium.

The four ensemble cast Emily Hespe (she/her), Josephina Drtiz Lewis (they/she), Shannon Bourne (she/her) and Samuel Howe-Barrett (he/him) all command the action, playing themselves with over 25 costume changes between them. Collectively they bring together a night of theatrical solos, duets and hilarious group numbers to stunning acclaim.

They are joined off stage by BGT's Will Burns as the very meta ‘big, loud, annoying voiceover’ that Josephine (as the very real on stage host) argues with on multiple occasions, joyously cracking jokes every now and then.

The theatrical casts have so much chemistry in every number they perform, including Josephine and Emily’s stunning "Take Me Or Leave Me" from Rent, as well as and Samuel and Shannon’s incredible rendition of "Time Of My Life" from Dirty Dancing. My only wish was for the inclusion of a full Les Mis number (given the title pun) and a Hamilton tune, but with all things considered this incredible team have really packed a punch in this whirlwind musical 2 hours extravaganza.

The run has completely SOLD OUT but let’s hope this isn’t the last concert the Old Joint Stock brings us!