Selladoor Productions and The Arcola Theatre present a new musical based on the film of the same name with new music and lyrics by James Lapine and William Finn. Having been on the London stage for a while, it has now gone out on tour and I caught up with the show this evening at The Lowry Theatre in Salford.
This is a very nice musical. The set is nice, the costumes are nice, the characters are nice, the story is nice, the songs are nice; everything is nice. And that is the show's ultimate downfall.
A hard-up and perhaps somewhat eccentric family from Albuquerque (New Mexico) suddenly find themselves having to drive in their old clapped-out VW camper-van the 800 miles to Redondo Beach, California in order to support their young daughter as she enters a Beauty Pageant. - The Little Miss Sunshine Contest. The musical is billed as 'A Road Musical' taking inspiration from the 'Road Movie' genre whereby the narrative follows the journey across country of a group of people and as they learn more about themselves and each other, revelations and happenings bring them ultimately closer together by the end of the final reel. It should be a family feel-good comedy with heart.
In this case the dysfunctional family to take the road trip is The Hoover family. The dad, a dreamer turned pragmatist, a sometime motivational speaker with his 10-point-plan watchcry; the Granddad, a sex-craved druggie who has been kicked out of his Retirement Home; a moody teenage son who dreams of being a pilot but since he hates his family has resorted to pretending to be mute and communicating everything via text messages; the preteen daughter, a little frumpy, awkward, and perhaps what the Americans would class as a 'dork'; Uncle Frank, a lecturer and Proust authority who has recently tried to commit suicide due to the unrequited love of one of his male students; and perhaps the only normal one in the family trying to stick all these disparate pieces together with familial glue, the mother. This should be more than enough for a comedy writer to get their teeth into.
However, the jokes don't come. Certainly there are some mildly humorous moments, but certainly no belly laughs from either the dialogue or the physicality, and it is all played on one very monotonous even keel: nice! The directing (Mehmet Ergen) makes sure it is kept that way: nice. There are no real highs and no real lows: even a death and the consequences thereof couldn't bring about any high emotions. It was all just 'nice'.
The set design, a two level affair with the band on the top level with room enough only for the cast to walk up a short ladder on one side and stand in a very small "balcony" at times - seemingly the only reason for this was to create different levels and break the monotony. Nice. There were three large signs attached to this framework, however only one of them (MOTEL) was ever used, so have no idea why there was a pharmacy sign and Holiday Inn logo there too. The set was extremely minimalist and bland. Even the colour never changed, we were given yellow ochre throughout. Nice. The VW camper was made with a truck base and the family's 1950's style dining chairs on top. However, to begin the second half, the van had dispensed with the base part and the cast used only the chairs, only for the base of the van to reappear towards the end. Very strange!
The whole lacked pizzazz and shazzam, even the characters obviously brought in to provide the laughs - Larry, Buddy, Joshua, Miss Califronia - completely missed their marks; and the three other beauty pageant contestants were quite obviously far too old. Putting a tiny preteen into this pageant with three girls who were mature and developed (playing younger) just simply didn't make sense to me on any level and it looked very awkward.
The music was good - and I especially enjoyed the harmony singing. The tunes were all nice, and they were played very nicely. But sadly nothing in there that I left the theatre humming and even now as I write the review am unable to recall one single melody-line or one single lyric.
The acting was nice. Nothing outrageous, nothing wooden, nothing outstanding, nothing glaringly odd. It was all just nice. Lucy O'Byrne as the mom, Sheryl, shone vocally - but even she had somehow condescended into blending in with the 'nice' in all other respects. Mark Monaghan showed great potential as the renegade grandad, but somehow, again seemed to be on a very short leash.
If 'nice' is what you are looking for, then this show delivers that by the bucket-load. Mildly entertaining, very tame, and lacking dynamics; but very nice.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 28/5/19
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