Love Quirks

The Other Palace

Playing until 12th October 2025

Book tickets

Photo credit: Anna Clare Photography

{PR Gifted ticket}

The show follows four flatmates, played by Lewis Bear Brown (Ryan), Clodagh Greene (Stephanie), Tom Newland (Chris), and Ayesha Patel (Lili), who navigate the trials and tribulations of love, friendship, and everything in between.

Love Quirks started off as a song cycle back in 2010, featuring Seth Bisen-Hersh's jaunty, Sondheim-inspired collection of romantic musings. This was later expanded into a full musical, brought to life by a Mark Childers-penned book.

Sadly, this show never quite shook off its origins, playing out like a series of thematically similar songs with tangled threads of plot loosely tying them together. The songs don’t serve the plot, and the plot doesn’t even really serve the songs, and this lack of cohesive purpose leaves the show trundling along with little urgency.

The interlocking relationships between the quartet as established in opening number ‘It Never Works’ initially spark intrigue: Lili and Ryan used to date, but he has since come out as gay while she continues to pine after him; Ryan announces that he’s moving out of the flat he shares with Lili and Stephanie after a whirlwind romance with a new boyfriend; Ryan fills his vacant room with Chris, a New Yorker in London, reeling from a painful breakup; Chris and recent divorcee Stephanie have history, so her and Lili are horrified when he moves in to their home.

But the promise of these characters and their unique dynamics never come to fruition. Lili and Ryan’s arcs feel especially wasted. Within their fairly minimal interactions on stage, there’s not even a glimmer of previous chemistry or affection, making it hard to believe they ever dated, and even harder to believe that Lili is still hung up on him all these years later — it appears they dated in high school, and are now seemingly at some point in their late twenties or early thirties. While their duet ‘Haven’t You Noticed?’ is a fun number that shows off Brown’s gift for physical comedy, it glosses over their relationship with a juvenile sheen, leaving Lili’s heartfelt yearning later in the show feeling unearned and out of place.

Brown’s character gives him some moments to really shine, such as his solo number ‘Um, Yeah’, in which we hear him deliver one half of a conversation on a cripplingly awkward date. His subtle use of vocal shifts and facial expressions in this song allow us to use our imaginations to fill in the gaps of the other half of the conversation, and it makes for one of the show’s most entertaining — and relatable — moments. A lot of the time, however, Ryan is weighed down by tired stereotypes and a lack of emotional clarity.

Lili is similarly plagued by Clichés; her portrayal as a man-bashing feminist feels antiquated for a musical written in 2022, especially when she also paradoxically feels the need to confirm to a love interest that she is “not a whore”. But Patel still brings bundles of energy to her performance, especially in the witty ‘I’d Rather Take A Nap’.

Fortunately, Love Quirks does get a big injection of heart through Greene’s Stephanie, who feels much more grounded and multi-dimensional than the other characters. Her conversations with an off-stage therapist colour her backstory, helping soft ballads like ‘Darling, I Love You’ pack a much greater punch. Greene brings a lot of depth and vulnerability to this performance, and has a gorgeous vocal tone that shines throughout both her solos and the group numbers.

Her will-they-won’t-they relationship with Chris is the real core of the plot, but confusing dynamic shifts mean the emotional beats don’t always land. A particularly strange moment is when Chris is grieving his broken relationship with his ex, to which Stephanie suddenly loses any sympathy and tells him to ‘Just Get Over It’ — literally, in a tango-tinged song — while Lili also berates him for having “no balls”. It feels like an unceremoniously unkind treatment of Chris, who by all accounts is depicted by Newland as a sweet, vulnerable guy, despite the book’s bizarre attempt to insist he’s a fuckboy.

The cast is strong, and the four actors manage to elevate the weak material most of the time, but there’s also a tendency for everything to be dialled up to 100% within every scene, particularly within the songs, which are heavily belted throughout. In a small, intimate setting like the Studio at The Other Palace, director Cecilie Fray could afford to add greater light and shade to the production.

Despite some genuinely entertaining musical numbers and promising performances, this production of Love Quirks can’t fix most of the issues caused by its source material. The show may be about love, but for me, this was unfortunately just a one-night stand.

Creatives

Book writer: Mark Childers

Director: Cecilie Fray

Musical Director: Tom Noyes

Set Designer: Bob Sterrett

Costume Designer: Alice McNicholas

Lighting Designer: Oliver McNally

Executive Producer, Composer & Lyricist: Seth Bisen-Hersh