Theatre review: Little Miss Sunshine

Michael Arndt, Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton's 2006 film Little Miss Sunshine was something of a sleeper hit despite being a downbeat comedy whose story takes some wild lurches in tone. Add the fact that it's essentially a road trip movie and it's fair to call it, at the very least, an eccentric choice for musical adaptation. James Lapine (book) and William Finn (music and lyrics) are the writers attempting it in a show that premiered in 2011, and finally comes to the UK in a production by Mehmet Ergen that starts a tour at the Arcola. Hoping to be crowned the titular junior beauty queen is 8-year-old Olive (Sophie Hartley-Booth, Lily Mae Denman or Evie Gibson,) who finds out that the girl who beat her in a local heat has been disqualified (for taking slimming pills) and she's now in the finals - with only a couple of days to make it from New Mexico to the pageant in California.

Her hyper-competitive, unemployed father Richard (Gabriel Vick) is convinced he can make a fortune writing a book of motivational tips, and insists on driving her to the pageant to distract himself from the fact that his publisher's given up on him.

Because none of them can be trusted on their own the entire family goes along, including Olive's mother Sheryl (Laura Pitt-Pulford,) brother Dwayne (Sev Keoshgerian,) uncle Frank (Paul Keating) and Grandpa (Gary Wilmot.) Sheryl is at her wits' end at her husband's denial of their financial worries, Dwayne has taken a vow of silence until he can qualify as a jet pilot, Frank is a Proust scholar who attempted suicide when his boyfriend left him for another academic, and only the sex-and-drugs-loving Grandpa seems to enjoy his life. With their fortunes all feeling pretty desperate, Olive's success at the pageant becomes something they can all become invested in and put their hopes into.

I've seen the film so was expecting this to be low-key, but wow, it's really low-key for what it's attempting; which admittedly is the pretty tall order of making a big musical entertainment out of a black comedy satire of child beauty pageants. Certainly that latter element has been lost, apart from that early comment about the diet pills there's not much bite in its look at that creepy world. But the story really does have too many about-turns of mood for Finn's forgettable songs to do anything other than break it up further. So the energy is a bit weird, occasionally coming to life for an entertaining setpiece (none more so than the finale at the pageant itself.)

But those moments do provide value, with the cast doing strong work - I've never been sure what niche Vick really fills as a performer but now that he's old enough for "awkward dad" that looks very much to be it; the characteristic glint in Wilmot's eye is perfect for the inappropriate Grandpa; and Pitt-Pulford makes very watchable the tricky role of the sensible one in the family. From a strong supporting cast Imelda Warren-Green gets the scene-stealing turns as a po-faced hospital administrator and a borderline-dodgy Hispanic beauty queen. Little Miss Sunshine shines bright occasionally, but most of the story doesn't look at home in its new musical setting.

Little Miss Sunshine by James Lapine and William Finn, based on the screenplay by Michael Arndt, is booking until the 11th of May at the Arcola Theatre's Studio 1; then continuing on tour to Bromley, Ipswich, Salford, York, Brighton, Bradford, Woking, Glasgow, Sheffield, Birmingham, Canterbury, Blackpool, Dublin, Oxford, Malvern, Leicester, Cardiff, Aberdeen, Exeter, Eastbourne, Inverness and Edinburgh (Pitt-Pulford and Wilmot are not due to appear on the tour.)

Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.