High School Musical review and star rating: ★★★★
Musicals have always looked to film and TV for inspiration, and nostalgia is increasingly a driver for commissioners. West End productions of Clueless, The Devil Wears Prada and 50 First Dates are a handful that have belted their way over from Hollywood, although the announcement of a musical version of High School Musical felt more surprising.
While there are undoubtedly HSM diehards, with this stage adaptation, even fans of the original are asking, “why now?” The Zac Efron movies are generous, frothy fun, but perhaps don’t ironically translate to adult viewing in quite the same way as other naughties classics.
Whatever the case, despite this chiming with the 20th anniversary of the first film, it felt like a left-field booking for the Troubadour Theatre, the new 2,000 capacity venue in Wembley whose last show, Starlight Express, was an Andrew Lloyd Webber smash hit.
High School Musical: Zingy choreography
Anyway, it turns out everybody wants to see High School Musical, the musical: tickets for this new production are nearly sold out for my preview performance.
First off, the new Troubadour Theatre is an astonishing gain for London theatre. It is within the former TV studios that hosted the live recordings of The X Factor, and the same shiny floor glamour from the building’s TV days is retained in this expensive-looking adaptation.
To the show though, and this isn’t an immersive gimmick like you might think, but a real piece of theatre, even if we’re initially thrown into a set up involving audience engagement. Cheerleaders are engaging with the audience from the stage before the ‘show’ begins, with the lights up, and in this impressive space, you feel like you’re about to watch a live recording of Simon Cowell’s now defunct reality show, or at least something major and televisual: everything’s enormous, from the sky-high lighting rigs to the East High wall hangings and full-size basketball court which forms the stage.
It’s a precursor to a glistening, exciting production that does justice to the original film’s energy and youthful vigour.
This adaptation is essentially a blow-by-blow account of the original film, although there are a few new scenes, which I won’t spoil here, other than to say nothing fundamentally changes the plot. One plot note though: there is a missed narrative opportunity for the character of Ryan to come out as gay. Writers recently stated that he is, a narrative that was missed from the original film, but here Ryan doesn’t quite get to right the wrongs of the film.
Anyway, as a production as a whole, this is a zingy, well choreographed, well sung adaptation of the story that follows high school stud Troy Bolton try as he attempts to balance his commitments to the school’s basketball team with his new interest in performing in the high school musical. All the while, he’s navigating his crush on school friend Gabriella.
Much like in the film, these leads roles aren’t the most charismatic characters; while Tobias Turley and Leonor Correia belt well as the central couple, although their impressions of Troy and Gabriella can feel a little blank. That is partly the point – neither are centre-of-attention type characters – although at times you want a bit more playful energy from the pair.
I was glued to Caitlin Tipping’s Sharpay Evans, the majorly extroverted singer always trying to get Troy’s attention. Tipping’s Sharpay is posher and more statuesque, and slightly more eccentric in her mannerisms, but a solid comic performance is backed up by equally stonking vocals. She’s brilliant in a similar way as she was during her turn as Celine Dion did recently in Titanique. Luke Bayer’s Ryan Evans is fairly true to the film: you endure to his vulnerable, likeable Ryan.
The two major pulls are the musical numbers and the adult cast, though, which features former McFly singer Harry Judd and former film cast member Kaycee Stroh, who played Martha Cox in the movies and has graduated into the arts teacher Ms Darbus in the stage adaptation. Stroh is so much fun in the admittedly attractive role of the slightly pretentious, always gesticulating teacher, who argues airily about how the arts are more important than sports when it comes to vying for Troy’s time. Stroh brings texture and depth, though, and never plays it as caricature. Judd is better than you might think in conveying emotion as Troy’s slightly toxic dad-cum-basketball coach.
As for those song-and-dance scenes, well, the tracks still sound killer, Aaron Renfree’s vivid, playful choreography translating them sparklingly onto the stage, though I found the crowd surprisingly sedate: you want to stand up and dance more but everyone remained diligently seated despite the fact that tracks including Stick to the Status Quo, Breaking Free and We’re All In This Together have dated brilliantly.
Still, everyone gets a chance to stand up and sing and dance at the end. That’s the only disappointing bit, the development of shows essentially crow-barring in a final reprieve in order for everyone in the audience to whip their phones out and film it. I rather enjoyed when phones were in our pockets and we were all in this together, in this jewel-encrusted former television studio, but a minor gripe about an altogether gleaming adaptation.
High School Musical plays at the Troubadour Theatre