Book & Lyrics by Jean Tong & Lou Wall. Songwriting by Lou Wall & James Gales. Hayes Theatre Co. 11 Oct – 9 Nov, 2024.
I spent a day thinking about Flat Earthers: The Musical and wondering why I left the theatre with a visceral feeling of total hatred for it. Yes, I walked away from the Hayes Theatre angry and that’s not my normal reaction to a show I don’t like. Usually I’m just “well that sucked” and off to catch the train home, but no, this one stuck with me.
Ria (Shannen Alyce Quan) is part of a snarky Youtube group debunking conspiracy theories online. But when a cute girl named Flick (Manali Datar) slides into her DMs to defend “flat earthers” Ria is smitten. Will she dive off her moral high ground to get dirty with a delusional girl who lives in a bunker? What do the Illuminati have to do with it? And how do we get from here to a nuclear apocalypse, all in the space of 2.5 hours?
Flat Earthers is a daft race from joke to joke, they constantly pile on top of each other like a succession of ad-libs running out of control. Along the way they handwave in the direction of deeper topics, like conspiracy mindsets, the need for community and the dangers of extremism while pushing onto the next non sequitur. Don’t expect any clever interrogation of big ideas, or even coherent character motivation, this is just all about dumb fun. If you think phrases like “suck my clit” or shouting “cunt” are funny punchlines, you might even enjoy this one.
So let’s talk about this GOOD stuff – and there is definitely good stuff here. While some of the tunes are woeful (the opening number was a hot mess), the music works well with the ballads and cute comedy moments between Ria and Flick. Both Quan and Datar are adorable in their roles and their chemistry carries you through the show’s rough patches. For me things really picked up in the second act as Michelle Brasier was given the spotlight to vamp it up as the evil Mz Prism. She makes zero sense but she’s loving every second of it.
Benjamin Brockman (is it just the mononym Brockman now? I can’t tell if that’s a thing or just a typo on the Hayes website) turns in another outstanding set, rivalling his one for Ride The Cyclone, cleverly blending video projections with the live action to give us a full online experience. This is Dear Evan Hansen on a tight budget and it’s just as effective. Daniel Herten and Xanthe Dobbie’s animations and sound design expand the space remarkably well.
I think what threw me was the fact this was a co-production between Hayes and Griffin, leading me to expect something with a slightly higher IQ than what we get. I may have disliked Griffin comedies like Blaque Showgirls but at least I’ll concede it had a point to make. Flat Earthers doesn’t just have a vacant heart, it actively runs away from any kind of definitive take on the basic premise of truth, political division and loving across the divide.
But the show bends over backwards not to offend conspiracy theorists, and in the current world that is a shockingly naive position to take. Worse still, the show doesn’t actually try to engage with the topic in any meaningful way or bring new thoughts to the table. It’s all just a backdrop for a couple of cheap laughs. The debunkers are all “mean” and the flat earthers are all “nice and just need friends”. Sorry but after years of Covid deniers, Pizzagate, QAnon, 5G and antisemitic conspiracies I don’t have a lot of time for taking these topics so lightly.
Cultural Binge 
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