Bronte Barbe is a fine performer and recently toured as Carole King in the wonderful Beautiful and appeared in the excellent Girlfriends concert at the Bishopgate Institute. It is rather surprising and quiet pleasing to find her in this small scale off Broadway musical at the Union Theatre and she is definitely the best thing about the show.
She plays The Match Girl in this modern version of the Hans Christian Anderson melancholy short story about the little girl on a cold New Year’s Eve, here set in modern day New York City. She is a seller of lights to brighten the lives of those with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and finds herself like the original Danish namesake on the streets alone without buyers for her product. Her despair is summed up in one of the most engaging and emotional songs of the show, “Can’t go home” as she fears going home without sales but can’t stay out in the freezing night. When she knocks on the door of Brendan (Declan Bennett) and he rejects her sixty second sales pitch, she is cast back into the cold.
