"Most spiritually uplifting musical ever to hit the Broadway stage."

That's a quote from a two-page ad in the Sunday NYT for "In My Life." I have a superlative of my own about the quote: least effective extreme overstatement about a work of art. Jeez, it sounds almost dangerous, like you'd have to be insane to want to see it. What's the competition in the "uplifting musical" category? There must be some appallingly uplifting crapola in the history of Broadway, yet this thing beats them all. Upliftingness should be administered in small doses!

I'm guessing they are just totally desperate to pull in the last most naive sector of the musical-going public. Let's find a news report on how their little show is doing. Here:

A recent ad in the New York Times declared "In My Life" to be "the most anticipated original musical of the season." Maybe, but only by those vultures who circle whenever they smell a dead-on-arrival turkey.

Such is the case with this debut Broadway effort by Oscar-winning composer and master jingle writer Joseph Brooks ("You Light Up My Life"), who is credited with the show's music, lyrics, book and direction. He's also the show's producer, and the first lesson he should take from it is to never again use a representation of a giant lemon as a prominent visual motif.