Space Dogs: The Musical

The Other Palace Studio

Playing until 9th August 2026

Book tickets

Photo credit: Alex Brenner

{PR Gifted ticket}

A true(ish) story about Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, the Russian chief scientist in the 1950s and 60s, and Laika, the first animal to go to space. Confronted by the egoistical leaders of the USA and the USSR, the two countries enter into a competition on their spaceflight capabilities. Following a comical interpretation of a USA message, the Russians accidentally and successful sends their first satellite, Sputnik 1, into space.

Playing a myriad of characters, Van Hughes and Nick Blaemire, who also wrote the book and music of this show, are fully committed and immersed in each one of their characters, including the dogs in the form of puppets. Their representations are comical and fully exposes the ridiculousness of the situations the characters found themselves in.

Hughes and Blaemire begin the show by introducing the dogs to the audience. How do they do this? By literally chucking dog soft toys at them and rouses a fun and engaging environment immediately. Under the direction of Will Blum, the two actors occasionally break the fourth wall to engage with the audience. On one occasion, they requested the audience to fetch the toys scattered throughout the auditorium and reminded them not to take any home as there are many more shows to come. Similarly, the two actors will occasionally play themselves temporarily to narrate the story. This in and out of character performances create contrast between their own personalities and the different characters they play.

There are ample slapstick theatrics using the toys, including an older dog that always has a cigarette in its mouth, advising Laika not to trust the humans, and a doggy beauty pageant to select the best dog to take part in the Sputnik 2 flight. Though funny, these add little to the overall narrative.

Despite the silliness of the show, the canine element of the story is surprisingly sentimental. The stray dogs were rounded up and trained for the specific purpose of surviving a space flight. Through Sergey and the scientists actions, they created a trusting and loyal Laika that wants nothing more than to escape the harsh realities of the streets and places her faith in the humans. However, despite tall tales claiming her survival and her success onboard Sputnik 2, the truth is that the Russians never intended her journey to be a round trip. The capsule she was in reached high temperatures and she likely died quickly inflight. A story that remained covered up until the early 2000s. During the course of the musical, there are signs of care shown by Korolev towards the dogs, though this is masked and swept under the rug with the rapid transition into cheerful musical numbers, which undermined the impact of these brief deeper emotional connections.

The story is simple, showing some parallels between Korolev and Laika, both of whom placed their trust in a higher power, with the truth behind their tales remained hidden for decades. Given this, there is a significant reliance on the rock musical numbers to pad out the show. The weakness of the plot really exposes the fact that the core material is surprisingly thin and even with the integration of musical numbers, some fairly catchy, there is still a feeling that the plot starts to drag after the first 45-50 minutes of the show.

Presented as a sort of documentary comedy, this musical had likely exaggerated the true events with spades of sentimentality. However, these don’t really matter as alas, as Van Hughes and Nick Blaemire described, the story is written by the victors. Despite its shortcomings, Space Dogs is barking mad of a concept, but instead of delivering a committed bite, it served a more of a playful nibble.

Creatives

Writer, music and lyrics: Van Hughes, Nick Blaemire

Director: Will Blum

Produced by Paul Taylor-Mills, Tricia Small