Theatre review: Mean Girls

The audience at the Savoy Theatre were largely decked out in pink today. Security let them all in, but frankly they were lucky, considering it's not Wednesday. Tina Fey's (book) musical adaptation of her endlessly quotable 2004 film with Jeff Richmond (music) and Nell Benjamin (lyrics) finally makes it to the West End, and the new Mean Girls doesn't disappoint: Cady Heron (Charlie Burn) goes from being home-schooled by her mother in Kenya to being thrown into the deep end of an American High School. Her guides to the convoluted class hierarchy are queer outsiders Janis (Elena Skye) and Damian (understudy Freddie Clements) but the social group she ends up joining is the Plastics, when she catches the attention of their fearsome leader Regina George (Georgina Castle.) Cady's been warned about the school's ruthless alpha pack, but thinks she can study them from the inside by treating them as the lions she watched in Africa.

Theatre review: Back to the Future

A perennial contender for the title of best movie ever made, Back to the Future never seemed like an obvious candidate for a musical theatre makeover, but given its popularity it was bound to happen at some point. If it's taken this long it's because, ironically, it's proven very bad at turning up on stage on time: Originally intended to open in 2015 to coincide with the date they visit in the first sequel, the long gestation period of musicals (including a well-publicised setback when Jamie Lloyd pulled out of directing duties) meant a further five years' delay, giving it an opening of... spring 2020. That Manchester run got cut short like everything else last year, and its return skipped Manchester entirely to open straight in the West End. Only for it to close again soon after Press Night when too many cast and crew members tested positive for Covid. I wasn't sure until the last minute that I'd actually get to see the show tonight but, still with a few understudies in place, performances started again yesterday.

Theatre review: Frozen

In what will with any luck be the start of me regularly going to the theatre with actual, human friends again, it's a twice-postponed trip with my resident Disney© queens Phill and Alex, and third time lucky takes us to the refurbished* Theatre Royal Drury Lane for Frozen. The wildly popular, very loose adaptation of The Snow Queen comes to the stage in a production directed by Michael Grandage and designed by Christopher Oram, but the look and feel of Jennifer Lee (book,) Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez' (music and lyrics) show never strays too far from the original movie. Understandably so - the film and its signature song are notoriously like catnip to little girls, so this probably isn't the show to get all experimental with†". Elsa (Samantha Barks) is heir to the throne of the Scandinavian-inspired kingdom of Arendelle, but since her parents' death she's been a recluse, even from her beloved younger sister Anna (Stephanie McKeon.)