The show's billed as a parody of jukebox musicals, and with the beach setting I thought if nothing else we'd get a version of Mamma Mia Exclamation Mark's twunks in trunks, but what we get seemed to me more like a spoof of the dodgier end of Elvis' movies, full of white teenagers in their thirties trying to look enthusiastic about the high school dance.
Instead of a dance though we get an event called the Beach Romp-Bomp-a-Lomp in which everyone competes in games to be declared king or queen of the beach, starring two matching trios of high school stereotypes: Dude (Jack Whittle) is the troubled lead who just wants to prove he's not a bum; Joe (Tom Babbage) is the stuttering geek; and Dickie (Damien James) is the one who thinks he's hilarious but basically just does loud, annoying chicken noises. Their female equivalents are Chastity (Janice Landry,) Mary Joe (Ellie Clayton) and Chickie (Katie Oxman) so as soon as they meet they all automatically pair up.
The songs are pretty direct spoofs of 1960s classics like "The Loco-Motion," "My Girl" and "The Shoop Shoop Song," in which Lambert shows himself to be almost up there with The Simpsons' Alf Clausen in being able to create instantly recognisable parodies of specific songs that are just far enough from the real thing not to infringe on copyright - with the verbal gymnastics the lyrics have to take to stay on the safe side often providing some of the gags. The best entry is probably the riff on Aretha Franklin's "Respect," which since it's been renamed "Appreciation" builds to the cast desperately trying to get the scansion to fit when it comes to spelling the word out.
There's some really strong jokes here but when you make a comedy this silly the hit-rate of gags has to be relentless, and that's where Fun at the Beach Romp-Bomp-A-Lomp!! comes unstuck. Mark Bell's production takes too long to warm up, so despite the cast embracing the ridiculousness of their roles they're left looking awkward without the punchlines to back them up. This does improve as the show goes on but the big laughs are still a bit too far apart to feel entirely comfortable, and Martin Landry repeatedly shows downright Seth MacFarlane levels of wildly overestimating how long you can drag a single joke out. That's not to downplay what the cast (which also includes Bradley Adams and Dixie Newman in the ensemble) are putting into this; for me Janice Landry regularly stole the show with her dead-eyed staring into the distance and adding an "n" to the start of words in an attempt to seem cutesy, resulting in her catchphrase of "ngosh!"
Funnily enough I have a similar comment to this week's earlier exclamation mark-based musical, in that the show takes a turn into horror parody but never all-out embraces the gore: The competition turns out to be inspired by Squid Game, with electrified beachballs and shark-infested surfing, and the final twist into metaphysical weirdness feels like a nod to Rocky Horror. But there must be a Kensington gore shortage because once again the idea of comedy splatter horror is barely touched on. I was downright annoyed when a round involved limbo-dancing under a scythe, and it turned out the grim reaper figure killed characters by tapping them with the handle! Don't stick a massive blade on the stage if your cast isn't going to be pulling strings of sausages out of their abdomens a few minutes later, as Chekhov famously said. I considered this one a gamble as the premise could be hilarious or could fall flat on its face, but what I got ended up in the middle: The creatives show they're capable of some really good jokes, but there's way too much tumbleweed between them.
Fun at the Beach Romp-Bomp-a-Lomp!! by Brandon Lambert and Martin Landry is booking until the 22nd of June at Southwark Playhouse Borough's Large Theatre.
Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes straight through.
Photo credit: Danny Kaan.
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