But he also falls for a sophisticated older (by a whole 18 months) woman when he spots Raphina (Grace Collender) waiting at a phone booth for her much older boyfriend to call. When she tells him she's a model Conor offers to cast her in his band's next video.
The trouble is he doesn't actually have a band, but with new friend Darren (Cameron Hogan) stepping in to act as manager, they recruit other boys from the school as musicians, with Eamon (Jesse Nyakudya) as his co-writer for songs inspired by the bands they see on Top of the Pops. The songs were always the big draw of the original film, taking in a variety of '80s styles both in sound and look as Conor is influenced by different acts.
So Duran Duran inspire "The Riddle of the Model," while when Conor wants to reflect something of Raphina's "happy-sad" personality he turns to The Cure for "The Beautiful Sea." For me much of the joy of the songs is how this inspiration feels authentic, but they're all genuine bops that don't sound like pastiche. Added to these we get a slightly Kate Bush-inspired song to give Raphina her own big number, while the opener "Everything Stops for Top of the Pops" is the closest to having the instant catchiness of the originals.
But there's not actually a huge amount of new songs - making a musical of a film that already has them often has the issue of none of the new ones matching up to the ones everyone came to hear, and while it's more or less true here too, Carney and Clark haven't really overloaded the show with new numbers for the sake of it so it never becomes an issue. Instead they know fans of the film - and it sounded like there were plenty of them in tonight - are there to hear favourites like "Up" and "Brown Shoes," which are also strong enough to draw in anyone completely new to them (even if the latter in particular has some sound mix issues.)
In fact for me Sing Street struck the perfect balance between "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and offering something new to justify the reinvention. Townsley leads a talented cast of actor-musicians who mix comedy and pathos with the energy of a live gig, and it's a very funny evening, whether in Walsh's witty script, the teenagers' attempts to recreate the New Romantic look with plastic vampire fangs and bridal veils, or Jack James Ryan's downright weird bully Barry, secretly Sing Street's biggest fan.
The story doesn't shy away from the darker side of the characters' lives, what with multiple violent or otherwise abusive adults, and the major subplot following Conor's attempts to cheer up his older brother Brendan (Adam Hunter,) who hasn't left the house in four months because he has panic attacks every time he tries to - one of the most accurate representations I've seen for a long time of how depression sabotages any attempt to fight it.
But the theme here is hope, and the optimism that music can be a saviour in tough times. Between that, the comedy moments, the beloved songs and a simple staging that feels spectacular - one number sees Conor and Raphina clambering all over a rapidly-spinning phone box that as far as I could tell was operated entirely manually by Hogan - this kept a grin on my face pretty much from start to finish, and already had me wondering if I could fit in a return trip well before the first act was over.
Sing Street by John Carney, Gary Clark and Enda Walsh, based on the film by John Carney, is booking until the 23rd of August at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
No comments:
Post a Comment