London critics have given generally negative reviews to the new Off West End musical Indecent Proposal, inspired by the 1988 novel by Jack Engelhard, which was also the basis for the 1993 film starring Robert Redford, Demi Moore, and Woody Harrelson. The creative team includes Michael Conley (book, lyrics), Dylan Schlosberg (music), Charlotte Westenra (direction), Connor Going (music direction), John Reddel (music supervision, arrangements), Jane McMurtrie (choreography), Anna Kelsey (sets, costumes), Hartley T A Kemp (lights), and Leigh Davies (sound). The cast includes Ako Mitchell (Larry Harris), Lizzy Connolly (Rebecca Caine), Eve de Leon Allen (Heidi), Jacqui Dankworth (Annie Poole), and Norman Bowman (Jonny Caine). Presented by 10 to 4 Productions, the show has a limited engagement through November 27 at Southwark Playhouse.
Broadway World (Gary Naylor): The key structural issue is that we never get to know any of the three corners of the love triangle. … This lack of engagement with the main storyline is further underlined by a splendid secondary plot led by the excellent Jacqueline Dankworth. … Is there room in 2021 for a reinterpretation of Indecent Proposal, the power dynamics shifting rapidly in a post-#MeToo world? Is there a case for musical theatre to be the vehicle for such a project? Is there a new generation who can step beyond the film’s long shadow and engage anew with the dilemmas the novel sets? I’d say yes to all three — but I’d also say that we’re still waiting for that show, because this one isn’t it. 2 out of 5 stars.
The Guardian (Lyndsey Winship): The subject matter is fascinating. Questions of power and consent emerge. Can a relationship survive infidelity? What would you do for a life-changing sum of money? … The grappling remains on the surface, the songs often literal inner monologues — shall I do this or shall I do that? And Dylan Schlosberg’s music rarely makes us feel something beyond the words. Tonally it jars. We’re in a 1980s casino but the music is poppy guitar strumming. … And you realise what you’re missing when jazz vocalist Jacqui Dankworth performs as lounge singer Annie. The range and tone of her voice, her ability to connect with a song and an audience: the class in this act belongs entirely to her. 2 out of 5 stars.
London Theatre 1 (Chris Omaweng): “Proposal,” however, isn’t the most indecent thing about the show, which has a very flimsy narrative and raises more questions than it resolves. One third of the songs are instrumental only. Very few of the remaining tunes — the ones with lyrics in them — drive the storyline forward, and it is, for the most part, only in the spoken dialogue that anything interesting happens. … A couple of redeeming features stop the production from being a complete disaster. The performance space is used well. … The sound design is excellent. … But otherwise, it’s a very bland and forgettable experience. 2 out of 5 stars.
Reviews Hub (Richard Maguire): Indecent Proposal was one of the most defining movies in the 1990s. … Southwark Playhouse’s new musical version is its opposite: under-directed and strangely down-at-heel. … It’s a thin plot, and the action is glacial, especially in the second half. … Best of all is Jacqeline Dankworth who plays Annie, another club singer. She may be a peripheral character but she gets the best songs and the few jokes. Dankworth is not subtle, but is eminently more watchable than the dreary couple and their creepy benefactor. … It may take more than a million dollars to be persuaded to sit through this turgid musical again. 2 out of 5 stars.
The Times (Dominic Maxwell): I’d love to tell you that this chamber-musical version of the novel on which the hit Nineties film was based is a surprising triumph. I’d even, at a push, be glad to tell you that it is the sort of memorably naff disaster some may have been expecting. Alas, the truth is somewhere terribly tepid in between. This is a well-meaning, well-played version of the story that gave Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford a smash hit in 1993. Yet it’s also a dramatically undercooked reinvestigation of a central moral quandary that, in its glossier and plottier way, the film also struggled to spark to life. … 2 out of 5 stars.