(seen at the afternoon performance on 23rd July 2025)
“Once The Musical” remains one of the greatest the monkey has seen. Without knowing the film (it later caught up with it, almost as good), it could see why John Carney’s breakout movie was such a hit.
Just like “Once,” the monkey had no prior knowledge of “Sing Street” going in. Sadly, this is not a case of history repeating.
What we have is a ‘Diet Coke’ rehash of the Roddy Doyle smash that is "The Commitments," with a twist of "Grange Hill" thrown in.
This time, a bunch of 16-year-old schoolkids form a band in recession-hit 1980s Ireland. Conor’s (Sheridan Townsley) family have to pull him out of private school when his architect father’s career hits the skids.
He ends up in Synge Street Christian Brothers School. The bully is a Poundland Gripper Stebson; Jack James Ryan does his best to make Barry’s cliched lines threatening, when any boy in the monkey’s old school would have simply flattened him without thinking too hard about it. Likewise Lloyd Hutchinson's violent priest teacher Brother Baxter - beautifully performed, but would have required an ambulance if he attacked a pupil as he did, in the monkey's day.
Back to the plot. Sheridan Townsley’s cringingly written character falls for it all, sees a girl he likes (Raphina – Grace Collender) hanging out in a phone box (this is the 1980s, remember) and recruits her for his band’s first video.
Next, form a band. Fixer Darren (Cameron Hogan) offers to manage, Sandra (Jenny Fitzpatrick - cool) volunteers her home for rehearsals - to son Eamon’s (Jesse Nyakudya) embarrassment.
It all comes together far too smoothly, with the band recording a succession of smoothly written original material that looks pretty good projected onto the set’s backcloth. Far too smooth to be credibly amatuer, alas. Also, sadly, the sound mixer couldn’t always keep up, but we never know if the regular operator was not in situ for the particular performance.
There’s tedious sub-plot faffing about with Conor’s family – his brother’s mental health issues and sister’s self-confidence problems are wrapped up in scenes probably written to allow the main characters an off-stage rest. Parental infidelities are likewise sketched in.
Monkey diagnosis is that Enda Walsh suffers chronic script construction failure. Following some rambling act one scenes, he has a sudden catastrophic 'storyline loss' in the middle of act two, as a movie-length plot is not long enough to sustain value for theatregoers expecting another hour for their buck. This causes the emergency “let’s do a concert now” parachute to deploy. Sadly, it doesn’t open fully, and the final 40 minutes of the show hits the ground with a mortifying splat.
Director Rebecca Taichman goes down with her craft. Unable to pace the scenes available, she also decides that Bob Crowley’s set is best dealt with like a Gaelic football – thrown on and off as required. The many wheeled objects are thus as distractingly trundling around as those on legs. While on the subject, the estate agent’s sign is probably an “in joke” the monkey couldn’t fathom.
With Sonya Tayeh’s choreography pure “Boyzone,” the cast at least look polished. Collender and Nyakudya are the stand-out stars, the former appearing for the first time in England, the latter not quite graduated but clearly destined for a strong future.
Somewhere, there is a sound 90-minute show in this stale and zipless slice of Irish school life. A few good songs can be salvaged, and with edgier drama, fewer back-stories and more pace added, they may find something.
As it stands, “Sing Street” is currently on “Dischord Row” on most fronts. And that’s a pity. So it is.
2 stars.