Are you Ready to Mingle with the team behind Why am I So Single?

Valentine’s Day. Whether you think it’s the most romantic day of the year or a money making exercise for card manufacturers, you have to agree it’s the perfect day to launch a fancy new musical about love and dating, and the importance of your BFF (best friend forever for the uninitiated).

London’s hot new cabaret venue, Underbelly Boulevard, was the place to be, full of pizza, prosecco and some of the hottest talent in town, along with an invited audience dizzy with anticipation for the highly anticipated “difficult second album” from Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, the duo behind the smash hit musical, Six.

The story of Henry VIII’s six wives getting together to form a girl band has taken the world by storm – from its humble beginnings as a student production at the Edinburgh Fringe to a West End and Broadway sensation, winning the Tony Award for Best Original Score (more on the Tonys later!), I don’t think anybody could have predicted its huge success – although as one of the people lucky enough to see the Fringe production, even sitting in that stuffy conference room in Edinburgh I knew I was seeing something special!

So, how on earth do you follow that? With a big flashy launch event for a big flashy musical of course! And who better to host the event than West End star and Strictly favourite, Layton Williams! Layton introduced the writing team, who took to the stage looking fabulous wearing a matching pink suit (Lucy) and gown complete with veil (Toby).

Jumping straight in, Layton asked Lucy and Toby to tell us what Why Am I So Single? is all about and how they came up with the idea. Lucy explained:

It tells the story of two friends who are sitting on the sofa moaning about how tragic and single they are for a whole evening, eating pizza and drinking prosecco. Those two friends just happen to be musical theatre writers who are procrastinating over working on the big fancy musical they’ve been asked to write.

And as to how they came up with the idea, Toby added: 

Erm, we were sitting on a sofa … actually we went away on a writing retreat at the start of 2019 … we went away with a big, fancy concept that we were going to do, but when we got there we just sat down and couldn’t stop talking about our tragic little lives, gossip, dating, and then we thought that maybe this is what we should write the musical about as it’s clearly all we care about! We ended up writing the final song first and then wrote the opening number. It’s nerve-wracking but we’re really excited to finally show it to people.

Talking about how it differs from Six, Lucy continued:

Conceptually, Six is like a pop concert so all the music is very pop and a very specific genre. But the idea of Why Am I So Single? is translating the mundane lives of these people into a “big fancy musical” so it samples a lot of different genres of musicals, it lives mainly in pop but has pastiches of different musical theatre genres, including a big tap number! 

On the writing process, Toby added:

The writing process was very different. Six was a side project to our degrees so we actually wrote it very quickly and we’d just think “oh that’ll be fun” and then get back to what was really important, like an essay, but when it came to this one, we had more time and it took us longer. It’s got two acts (gasp!) and so there’s more of a plot and the characters have motives and arcs, so we got into what do they want and how does it happen? It’s much more structured. There were sticky notes everywhere!

Anybody who has seen Six will know that the show has widespread appeal. Layton asked who Lucy and Toby were hoping would come and see Why Am I So Single? They explained:

Lucy: When we’re writing, it doesn’t work when we try to imagine a target audience and write for them. What does work is when we write the show the two of us would want to see, something silly and funny. When we did the workshops (last year), although we really wrote it for us, we learned it’s very relatable for everyone, people who came along were all different ages and genders, and everyone related to it. As everyone at some point has been single and moaned to friends about it, it’s for everyone.

Toby: You can expect a lot of chat and anecdotes about dating, about being single, and the more the characters are talking, the more they’re learning about each other, and becoming more vulnerable. It does get a bit serious and emotional.

Leesa Tulley, Jo Foster and Noah Thomas will lead the new musical, Why Am I So Single?

As well as giving us this exclusive insight into Why Am I So Single? We were also given an exclusive preview of three of the show’s songs: the opening (title) song, performed by Lucy and Toby, the hilarious, brilliant (and not remotely autobiographical) “Eight Dates” from Jo Foster and a beautiful ballad from Leesa Tulley.

After the official interview, Layton took a few questions from the floor.

Asked whether any major changes had been made since the workshops, now the show’s moving into the West End, Lucy said:

This is all very exciting as we did the workshop just with a sofa and two chairs, now it’s a full production with an amazing design team. In terms of writing we took the show apart and put it back together, so hopefully people won’t be able to see major differences but it will just feel better, there’s more character development, we’ve set up a few red herrings for one character, a couple of songs have been rewritten and new songs added, but really it’s pretty similar, it’s the same show.

Asked what lessons from Six they’ve taken forward to this new show:

Lucy: I think one is to trust our instincts to write jokes that make us laugh rather than trying to write for theatre, just do it as if we’re a couple of friends talking but up on stage. The other big one is about how our relationship has grown.  When Six started we were tiny babies and just excited, Six was our honeymoon, but we’re now well and truly into our marriage, we’ve learned so much about each other and from each other, an now we have this weird shared brain!

Toby: Learning about our relationship in the writing process, we’ve learned to trust each other, and to put aside our insecurities that we both think the other is the super genius one and I am just tagging along!

Lucy: If we ever argue, it boils down to the fact that we think the other is the secret genius!

I think it’s safe to say they are both geniuses and that’s no secret! I also had the opportunity to ask the team behind Why Am I So Single? some questions.  Producers George Stiles and Kenny Wax gave me some insight into Toby’s musical theatre origin story:

Kenny: George was basically Toby’s “fairy godmother” through his school years. George had been at school with Toby’s dad, they were in a band together, Toby’s dad played guitar, George played keys and wrote the music. When Toby said he wanted to write musicals his dad said “Meet my friend George”

George: He said to me, “Toby wants work experience, will you do it? And he wants to write musicals, so can you talk him out of it?” I said yes to work experience and no I won’t talk him out of it! Then we were invited to see Six …

Kenny: That was the original student production. We took it back to the Edinburgh Fringe the following year, then it came down to the Arts (in London) and the rest is history. 

Without giving too much away about their characters in the show (we don’t even know their names yet!), the three lead actors shared how they’d describe their characters on a dating profile:

Jo Foster (they/them): Mine would probably just put “cute and slay” – not give away too much!

Noah Thomas (he/him): “We can go out if you want, but I’m not really bothered”

Leesa Tulley (she/her): “We can go but it’s totally OK if you’re not free”. She’s so passive!

And finally, a chat with the dream team themselves. I asked Lucy and Toby what the biggest “pinch me” moment has been for them so far. Toby didn’t hesitate to answer:

I would say the Tony Awards, winning and also seeing the Queens performing. I’ve watched videos of people like Patti Lupone and Idina Menzel performing and to see our Queens up on that stage was amazing!

Asked why people should come and see the show, Lucy said:

Although it’s called Why am I So Single? it’s a show for everybody, for anybody who has ever had a friend or been single …you’ll come away feeling uplifted, joyful and wanting to text someone you love, it’s heartwarming and super fun!

Toby added:

And you’ll have a newfound appreciation for the prosecco and pizza combo!

Why Am I So Single? opens this summer at London’s Garrick Theatre, running from 27th August 2024 to 13th February 2025. Tickets are available now, starting at £20, from www.whyamisosingle.com