(seen at the afternoon performance on 26th March 2022).
Thrown out of his rock band for trying to live his dreams, loafer Dewey Finn (Alex Tomkins) impersonates his friend and landlord teacher Ned Schneebly (Mathew Rowland) to take on a class at elite Horace Green Prep. When it turns out his bunch of brainiac kids can play instruments, Finn ditches lessons he can’t teach anyway to mould them into contenders for “Battle of the Bands.”
A hit 2003 movie became an Andrew Lloyd Webber / Julian Fellowes / Glenn Slater musical in 2015, running successfully for 4 years in the West End. This new UK tour is almost indistinguishable from the West End run, apart from one or two small cuts in the songs and some updated references to Tik Tok and "Cats The Movie".
Anna Louizos’s set and costume designs look even better on the Wimbledon stage (the portrait of the old lady, fifth from the left in the row is still mighty suspicious, however) and both Natasha Katz’s lighting and Mick Potter’s sound rock the show up several notches keeping the visuals lively and filling the auditorium with atmospheric noise while still leaving every word distinguishable.
Laurence Connor demonstrates as always a talent from getting the most out of his youngest cast members. The monkey is being honest in declaring simply that the child cast were a knockout ensemble and gives them the rare honour of group naming – something it has done only three times in the site’s history. A bow for Emerson Sutton, Ava Masters, Oliver Pearce, William Laborde, Devon Francis, Kaylenn Aires Fonseca, Layla Pages, Souparnika Nair, Alex Shotton, Liza Deikalo and Kyla Robinson.
For the adults, Alex Tomkins builds a magic all his own when he finds a connection between himself and his young charges.
Nemesis head teacher Rosalie Mullins is given full voice by Rebecca Lock, whose plaintive “Where Did The Rock Go?” is a contrast to the disciplinarian carefully created for over half the show.
Exasperated friends Rowland and wife Patty (Nadia Violet Johnson) likewise surprise by the end of the show, both doing their best to survive the longest of the cuts made to the original script.
The rest of the cast do well in the ensemble singing and Joann M. Hunter dance routines. Hunter knows school life is drilled yet doesn’t allow necessary linier movements to become stale, with inventive touches whenever such limitations loom.
There’s a couple of musical moments where Lloyd Webber’s “Variations” are heard (re-cycled from several other shows) but “Stick It To The Man” is a joyous two-fingers to the establishment and “If Only you Would Listen” a heartfelt sting of pain. Neither perhaps working like “Memory” (which nobody wants to hear in the film again) but serving the storyline to perfection.
Unable to deliver a proper “what happened next” ending as the movie does, but sensibly opting to rock out the playout instead, this isn’t a vintage Lloyd Webber show but is an entertaining introduction to musical theatre for older teens. Better still, it is of the highest West End quality as a touring production, meaning that the entire country will get to see the show at its very best. An opportunity worth taking.
4 stars.