If you’ve ever worked in an office, endured a performance review, survived another restructure or sat through a meeting wondering what on earth everyone is talking about, H.R. The Musical may feel frighteningly familiar.
The hit New Zealand workplace sketch-comedy takes the ridiculous side of modern working life and turns it into a musical revue, using everything from blues and rap to Latin plainchant along the way.
Performed by three actors taking on a variety of workplace characters, the show tackles everything from communication and leadership to DEI, artificial intelligence, corporate culture and seemingly endless restructuring.
Following sell-out performances in New Zealand and appearances at Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, H.R. The Musical has now brought its particular brand of Kiwi workplace humour to Edinburgh.
And judging by the audience when I attended, HR clearly has a lot to answer for.
The audience was certainly busier than I expected, with the venue nearly sold out and a real mixture of ages in attendance.
I think the title and premise immediately appeal to a vast number of people because almost everybody has an HR story.
Whether you’ve worked in a huge organisation, a small office or somewhere in between, chances are you’ve encountered at least some of the situations being satirised here.
The show delivers its material very satirically while also raising an interesting point underneath all the comedy: resources are actually people.
People are individuals.
Sometimes the corporate world has a wonderful ability to forget that.
H.R. The Musical takes many of those familiar workplace behaviours, policies and phrases and pushes them into the ridiculous. And because there’s often already something slightly ridiculous about them in real life, the comedy has plenty to work with.
Now, I am aware that this is a sketch-comedy show, and I think that is both its blessing and potentially its curse.
There isn’t a storyline as such.
If you’re somebody who likes a strong plot, developing narrative and the more traditional theatrical elements of a beginning, middle and end, then this potentially isn’t going to be the show for you.
However, if you like variety, humour and unexpected turns, then absolutely give it a go.
The sketch format means the production can jump between different aspects of working life without worrying about how everything fits into one overarching story. One moment we’re somewhere recognisable, the next we’re heading into something considerably more bizarre.
That unpredictability is part of its charm.
I did, however, feel the overall length of the show was possibly a little too long.
Sketch comedy relies heavily on momentum, and when you’re moving rapidly between scenarios, I think there is an argument that slightly shorter can sometimes be stronger. Trimming a little from the running time could make an already entertaining production feel even sharper.
The entire performance is carried by just three actors, who between them play a whole variety of characters from across the workplace.
That requires considerable versatility.
They move between different personalities, workplace situations and leadership scenarios while keeping the pace and humour going throughout. Letters spelling out different words are also used to good effect, becoming a simple but clever recurring visual device within the sketches.
There is audience participation too.
I’m not going to tell you what happens because that would spoil it.
You’ll just have to hope HR doesn’t select you.
What really tells you whether comedy works, of course, isn’t necessarily what a reviewer thinks.
It’s whether the audience laughs.
And they did.
The audience around me clearly loved the show, with plenty of laughter throughout.
I think relatability is the key to its success.
You don’t need specialist knowledge of HR to understand the jokes. You just need to have experienced working life.
We’ve all encountered corporate language that uses fifteen words when three would have done. We’ve probably all experienced meetings that could have been emails. Many of us have watched organisations restructure themselves only to seemingly end up exactly where they started.
HR The Musical has an enormous amount of material available simply because workplaces can be very strange places indeed.
The clever thing is that underneath the silliness and satire, there are some genuine observations about modern working culture.
It’s exaggerated, certainly.
But perhaps not always by as much as we’d like to admit.
This show fully deserves to be playing to packed houses in Edinburgh, and I hope it has a life beyond the Fringe too.
In fact, I could easily see HR The Musical being performed at corporate away days and conferences, perhaps using shorter selections from the show.
Although watching senior management sitting through some of these sketches could potentially be an entire show in itself.
HR The Musical is clever, relatable and wonderfully ridiculous.
If you’ve ever worked in an office – or simply survived one – you’ll find plenty here to laugh about.
★★★★★ 5 Stars
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/hr-the-musical
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