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REVIEW | Heated Rivalry - The Unauthorized Musical Parody, Underbelly boulevard Soho Theatre - London
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Heated Rivalry - The Unauthorized Musical Parody has finally hit Underbelly Soho, and it was worth the wait.
On paper it’s a risky proposition – a campy ice-hockey rom-com in a tiny Soho basement with no ice, no rink, and nowhere to hide. In practice, it’s one of the funniest, most joyfully filthy hours you’ll see at this year’s festival.
The premise is simple and perfect: Two hotshot prodigies, one Canadian golden boy and one American bad boy, are drafted as the future of hockey. They hate each other on the ice. Off the ice, that rivalry starts to look a lot like something else. It’s enemies-to-lovers, sports movie spoof, and horny rom-com all in one.
What makes this production sing is its cast of five. In a venue this small, five actors is actually a luxury, but Director, Alan Kliffer, uses every inch of them. You have your two leads, Shane (played by Zheng Xi Yong) and Ilya (played by Joseph Dann), both excellent, both with the kind of physical chemistry you can’t fake and neither leave the stage for long. They skate, they fight, they flirt, all through perfectly choreographed movement, by Brooke Engen & Tiffany Engen, that makes a black box feel like a full arena.
Then you have the supporting trio, Andrew Berlin, Sylvie Stenson and May Tether, who do the heavy lifting of the entire hockey world. Between them they play 15+ roles: two coaches, both sets of parents, teammates, sports pundits, agents, referees, and a rotating cast of locker-room boys. It’s a masterclass in quick-change character comedy. With one actor playing both the deadpan Canadian coach and an over-caffeinated American commentator in the same scene, this got the biggest laugh of the night. Another, switching from Shane’s mum to a thirsty superfan in two seconds flat with just a cap change, is pure comic genius.
This is how you make a small cast feel big. Instead of feeling stretched, it feels tight, drilled, and relentless. No scene is wasted, no character is a filler. The doubling isn’t a budget necessity, it’s the joke.
The set design, by Sully Ross, leans into the limitations too. There is no big set. Just two benches, a locker-room door frame on wheels, and a lighting rig that snaps from stark rink-white to sleazy motel red, by Lighting Designer Devin Cameron. A single hockey stick becomes a mic stand, a sword, and a very suggestive prop. The audience is in on it from minute one, and that low-fi invention makes it funnier.
Heated Rivalry - The Unauthorized Musical Parody is genuinely funny. Not polite fringe chuckle funny, full volume, snort-laugh, miss-the-next-line-because-the-crowd-is-too-loud funny. The script is razor sharp, packed with filthy one-liners and brilliant physical comedy that riffs mercilessly on hockey-bro culture.
But here’s the clever bit: for all the jokes about jockstraps and post-game showers, the central love story is played completely straight. The tenderness between the two leads in the quieter moments makes the comedy land even harder.
Heated Rivalry - The Unauthorized Musical Parody proves you don’t need a big arena to tell a big sports story. You just need five actors who know exactly what they’re doing, chemistry to burn, and the confidence to let a tiny, dark room in Soho become a sold-out stadium. This show will keep you laughing throughout, a definitely must see show.
★★★★.5
Heated Rivalry - The Unauthorized Musical Parody is playing now until the 1st November 2026 at Underbelly Soho Theatre, London: https://underbellyboulevard.com/tickets/heated-rivalry-the-unauthorized-musical-parody/
