This snarky adaptation of the hit 2004 film never allows a dull minute, even if its general thrust is cosily predictable
: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg
Not another flipping musical! Walk down Aldwych and along the Strand and you’re spoilt rotten for song-fests. Now, at the Savoy comes Mean Girls, the stage adaptation of the hit 2004 film centred on female high-schoolers whose raison d’être is getting noticed and being cool but who need to discover a more meaningful existence.
David Hare has dared to describe musicals as “the leylandii of theatre, strangling everything in their path”. Perhaps that’s putting it too strongly. Still, the straight play in the West End seems to be withering.
How, that said, can I justify cheering on Mean Girls? Set beside a recent musical visitor to the Savoy like Sunset Boulevard, it is mere chaff; the songs (by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin) are catchy yet forgettable. But just as there was a winning comic zest to the film (scripted by Tina Fey), so this spin-off (which spawned a film itself) has a rare combination of warmth, goofiness, snarky wit and perceptiveness. Tweaked for London, the superbly well-cast production, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, never allows a dull minute even if its general thrust is cosily predictable.
: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg
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