Titanique

Titanique begins with a museum tour about the sinking of the Titanic being hijacked by Celine Dion, who announces that she was on the ship and that the official account has left several things out. The tour guide objects. She sings over him, and the correction takes the rest of the evening.

What follows is the story retold by an unreliable witness with a back catalogue. Jack and Rose meet, the iceberg arrives on schedule, and every emotional turn is scored with a song from Dion's discography, deployed with total conviction and no regard for whether it fits. Characters from the margins get promoted. The ship's officers behave badly. Celine keeps inserting herself into scenes she was demonstrably not in.

The show has a book by Tye Blue, Marla Mindelle and Constantine Rousouli, and it opened in 2022. It is a jukebox parody rather than a satire: the joke depends on the performers taking the songs entirely seriously, belting them at full power while the plot around them collapses.

The staging is deliberately cheap in a way that is part of the comedy, with a small company, quick changes and effects that draw attention to their own limitations. The singing is not cheap. The central role is written for somebody who can actually do it, and the show does not work otherwise.

It is affectionate about both things it is spoofing. The disaster picture and the singer are treated as objects of genuine love, which is why the parody is funny rather than mean.