The musical Smart Casual centres on a London flat, three meet-ups, and a group of friends fresh out of university: Mel, Marc, Willow, Lily, Ben, and Jordan. Together in the apartment where they got together, broke up, and made up, each of them gets caught up by frustrations typical of one’s early 20s: Ben wants to settle down into married life but discovers neither himself nor his partner, Willow, are as certain as he thinks; Lily wants only to not be boring, to not be business-like, to not be making the world shittier, yet struggles to positively want anything; and Mel knows her rent will be paid by her parents but she cannot get the one job at Vogue she wants. These characters, and their performers, feel to me like the main reason for the success of the work. Their personalities are clear-cut and well-conceived, often fitting an archetype without losing their own opinions and motivations. This frankness then lets the play focus on their interactions between them.
Most songs have two, three, or four voices singing against or with one another and they keep a conversational tone outside of the chorus or solos, thus making each song an evolving dialogue. This style is effective in continuing interactions into the songs, but at times the balance in volume between band and co-singers make the words hard to follow. But this is far from enough to get in the way of appreciating the great vocals or understanding the character development. Ultimately, however, the play is not bound to these characters and their frustrations. It is bound to the apartment. So, when Mel moves out, the play can end leaving the characters with only directions and possibilities rather than closure. Even the ‘always better for the experience’ refrain of the final song feels like an optimistic perspective rather than an objective point. As a 21-year-old myself, that felt fitting.
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