Theatre review: Cry-Baby, The Musical

Not actually a Jemini jukebox show, Adam Schlesinger (music,) David Javerbaum (lyrics,) Mark O'Donnell & Thomas Meehan's (book) Cry-Baby, The Musical is in fact an adaptation of the 1990 John Waters film. Perhaps not the most obvious candidate to be turned into a musical, given that the original film already was one, but in terms of story it's a good candidate to follow Hairspray to the stage. Another trashy piss-take of the myths of mid-20th century Americana, this one sees the teenagers of 1954 Baltimore divided into two groups: The rich, preppy and virginal Squares, and the poor, rebellious and horny Drapes. Allison (Lulu-Mae Pears) is a Square, but she secretly wants to be a Drape, especially when she meets their bad-boy leader Wade Walker (Adam Davidson,) known as Cry-Baby because the last time he cried was when both his parents were sent to the electric chair for a crime they didn't commit.

Theatre review: Young Frankenstein

Mel Brooks' musical adaptation of his own classic film The Producers was a Broadway and West End smash hit, so it was no surprise that the same creative team would try to follow it up. But giving Young Frankenstein the same treatment resulted in an overblown flop, which is why it's taken a decade to cross the Atlantic. But in that time Brooks has continued to work on it, and although I don't have anything to compare it to the version that director/choreographer Susan Stroman has brought to London is, although problematic, hugely entertaining and crowd-pleasing. If one of the criticisms of the 2007 production was that it was too much of a big-budget juggernaut, that's been amended: Although there's a large cast with a vast amount of costume changes (designed by William Ivey Long,) Beowulf Boritt's set tends for a more old-fashioned look with curtain backdrops, and the whole show has a music-hall feel.