EDFRINGE REVIEW: Webber! (Grant Sharkey)

Webber! - ★★★★☆ – Riotous

Grant Sharkey
1-9 Aug
Review by Rebecca Mahar
 
“Welcome to Webber! by Grant Sharkey. This show contains some horrible things. Good luck!” 
 
Along with Sharkey’s introductory quip “you will enjoy it but you might not know why,” a truer and more tone-setting preshow announcement has never been made. A two-hand sung-through comedic musical about the life and crimes (depending on who you ask) of The Right Honourable The Lord Lloyd-Webber KG (aka Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber) written and composed by Sharkey, Webber! is a laugh riot that would be totally absurd if there weren’t so much truth to it.
 
For the edification of those who have been living under a rock for the last sixty years or so, ALW (for short) is the composer of many smash hit musicals, including The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Evita, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. 
 
A common thread of ALW’s musicals is that they are generally inspired by or/and ripped off from someone else’s source material, leading Sharkey, as Webber, to assert that he “was born without the ability to have original ideas,” instead turning to the brazen use of other people’s, as well as partnering with “middle class fuckboy and genius lyricist” Tim Rice to get his musicals off the ground. After all, “if you wanna be rich but your head is full of dicks, you’re gonna need big balls.”

Grant Sharkey and Laura Clare Reid in Webber! Pic: Emma Jane Mansfield.
 
The above is a typical sampling of Sharkey’s lyrics, which are bawdy, belligerent, and boldly accusatory. Behold the field in which he grows his fucks, and see that it is barren. 
 
Joining Sharkey’s wry and blasé Webber onstage is Laura Clare Reid as “the spirit of eternal human greed”: Margaret Thatcher. A huge supporter of Webber due to the amount of money he produces, Thatcher and Webber conspire to “fuck the money out of actors/the theatre/every piece of intellectual property ALW can get his hands on/etc” and into Thatcher’s Poppins-bag of avarice. The Ghost of Christmas Kill-The-Working-Class, Reid prances through the show with killer vocals and incredible commitment to the bit.

Grant Sharkey and Laura Clare Reid in Webber! Pic: Emma Jane Mansfield.

As phenomenally hilarious as the show is, undeniable whether you’re a lover or hater (or both) of ALW’s music, it’s underpinned by legitimate criticism of the man, his politics, and his personal life. Comedy and satire are classic and highly effective forms of dangerous critique— and while ALW might not (yet, anyway) have secret police who could come and disappear Sharkey and Reid, he does have approximately a hundred squillion quid at his disposal, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. 
 
Fighting back against the rich and powerful, the acceptance that talented or/and charismatic men can get away with anything, and trains with faces, Sharkey has created a beautiful hot mess of a musical indictment. It should run longer than Cats.
 
Running time: 50 minutes with no interval
Venue: theSpace @ 
1-9 August 2025
Time: 7:15pm
Tickets: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/webber

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