Lyn Gardner interviews producer Vicky Graham as climate-change rom-com musical Hot Mess returns to London
Published on 10 June 2026
In 2019 producer Vicky Graham was sitting on the pitching panel for BEAM, the annual showcase for new musicals in development. Two writers unknown to her pitched the idea of reimagining the climate crisis as a rom com between Earth and humanity.
'They had this incredible energy and two really accomplished songs, and I found myself leaning forward and thinking, "I want to be part of this."So, I broke all my rules about needing to know people really well if I’m going to work with them and be familiar with their back catalogue before commissioning them. I just rushed to give them a seed commission.”
Those writers were Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote, and the show is Hot Mess, which is getting its second London run at The Other Palace following a stint at Southwark Playhouse and a run at the Edinburgh fringe last year where the audience was notably young and responsive. In Edinburgh critics were lining up to throw the bouquets, with several suggesting that the show had the potential to be another Six. The latter, of course, first caught the eye at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 before going on to be a global phenomenon.
The new version of Hot Mess comes without festival constraints and runs at 85 minutes-- necessary, says Graham, “because we are packing in over 200,000 years of human history” --- as it tells the story of Earth and Hu (short for humanity) who embark on what turns out to be a tricky relationship. She’s already been around for 750 million years and has a chequered dating history, including a relationship with T-Rex which ended badly. He’s new on the scene, but his many enthusiasms can be wearing to her in more ways than one, and he is not averse to a bit of gaslighting. Is it true love or a toxic relationship? Can she ever begin to forgive his affair with the moon?
The show has been developed with support from Birmingham Hippodrome’s increasingly influential New Musical Theatre department, and Graham says that was invaluable and kept the project on track. "Deirdre O'Halloran has been the dramaturg, and she kept reminding us to lean into the rom-com element and that permission to be funny freed up Ellie and Jack.”
A good decision, and one which ensures this show is not a hot mess but a relatable, hugely enjoyable show about dating and relationships but also a clever and informative romp through human history and our relationship with the planet. What might have been preachy is instead pithy, witty and delivered with catchy songs and considerable nuance.
“At that first pitch my thought was that nobody in theatre at the time was making work that talked eloquently and interestingly about climate change in a way that audiences could respond to, and Hot Mess had the potential to do that.”
Seven years on, and so it proves, with the show expanding beyond a clever concept to something deeper and more moving.
“I think to be a success, a show has to get beyond a musical-theatre audience. It has to be talked about through a pop culture frame of reference. I’d like Hot Mess to be a conversation starter.”
Graham hopes that there will be further life for the show after its Other Palace run (which will make it Olivier eligible) and says there is already international interest in the piece. Godfrey and Coote—who had a cult hit with 42 Balloons at the Lowry in 2024-- are definitely being courted for other projects and ideas. “They are such exciting talents.”
For Graham—whose previous hits include Flowers for Mrs Harris, a hit for both Sheffield and Chichester and which was seen at Riverside with Jenna Russell in 2023—Hot Mess is an indication not just of individual talents but also a reminder of the sheer amount of development new musicals need.
“There is no getting around the fact they take time. You do not really know what it is that you have got until you have got live music, the actors interacting with each other and preferably some audience. So workshopping is essential, and that takes time and money. I think we do sometimes see people who don’t have the funds or the support throwing a musical on stage very quickly, but more will fail than succeed because workshopping and then rewriting and recalibrating and then workshopping again really does work, but it’s time-intensive. There are no shortcuts."
But Graham is also a great believer in investment and argues that the number of people writing small-scale musicals and the growing potential of those shows and partnerships is an argument for both buildings and the Arts Council to make that investment and keep it up. She points to the sustained ACE investment since 2012 in the Musical Theatre Network (MTN), Mercury Musical Developments (MMD) and Birmingham Hippodrome’s dedicated department.
"Those things really make a difference. It feels like we are in a hugely rewarding moment when producers committed to the musical theatre form are finally starting to get the work of brilliant writers to the stage. It is far from perfect, but what that investment since 2012 has done is help create a pipeline of new work, and that is genuinely exciting. And Birmingham Hippodrome’s intervention will only accelerate that because it has created a department with resources and brilliant people working there. So, yes, it feels like a good moment to be producing musicals.”
Hot Mess plays at the Other Palace Theatre from 13 June - 6 September 2026. Book your tickets today.
By Lyn Gardner
Lyn Gardner is an acclaimed theatre journalist and former critic with decades of experience covering British theatre, from off-West End and fringe theatre to major West End productions.