Long earlier than the post-university romance of David Nicholls’ novel One Day got here to the display, there was his coming-of-age story Starter for Ten, that includes a first-year college pupil from Essex, tailored for movie in 2006.
That movie, with its star-studded solid (James McAvoy, Rebecca Corridor, Benedict Cumberbatch) and Eighties soundtrack, is partly the idea of this musical adaptation about Brian Jackson’s quest to get on to the TV quiz present College Problem – and likewise get the lady, after all. Directed by Charlie Parham, it begins faithfully, with Emma Corridor and Parham’s ebook replicating the movie’s screenplay (additionally written by Nicholls). However it turns into extra authentic and amusing, if madcap, when the ebook swings off-piste and goes its personal approach.
In Brian’s journey from Essex to Bristol College, there are problems with id and sophistication that are channelled via humour right here. Some characterisation is simply too broad, and Mel Giedroyc, as Brian’s mom, is an particularly generic Essex caricature. However Brian is extra textured and Adam Bregman performs him endearingly, bringing a particular singing voice with flecks of Morrissey.
His push and pull between posh-girl Alice (Emily Lane) and protester Rebecca (Eubha Akilade) provides the story its class satire and comedian chunk. Alice is a horsey Sloane, excellently hammed up by Lane in songs together with For the Story, whose each line drips with Chelsea lady parody. Rebecca is right here a sarky Glaswegian who rails in opposition to apartheid and urges the boycotting of Barclays (so what’s modified?). She might have grated however Akilade has a profitable emo awkwardness. Actors double in roles and because the anarchic comedy amps as much as riotousness, so Giedroyc seems within the present’s most surreally entertaining incarnation as a TV exec who seems precisely like Margaret Thatcher and sings Cream of the Crop in that vein.
The music, by Hatty Carman and Tom Rasmussen, is infused with synth sounds and musical money owed to the likes of New Order and Eurythmics in addition to Brian’s beloved Kate Bush. The songs are filled with vitality and humorous lyrics (written by Corridor, Parham, Carman and Rasmussen) though not all are catchy in themselves.
A part of the present’s pleasant scrappiness is Frankie Bradshaw’s flimsy cell set as scenes play out in opposition to a bland back-curtain. The recurring determine of quiz host Bamber Gascoigne (Robert Portal) addresses the viewers or breezes comically throughout the stage with a tv showmanship paying homage to Bruce Forsyth.
The vitality of the present turns into unhinged after the interval, with too many unmemorable songs that lose the story’s central focus. Extra jarringly, the ending pulls the punch of Nicholls’ authentic to absolve Brian of wrongdoing and renders his journey in direction of coming-of-age enlightenment incomplete. It’s a disgrace as a result of till then, it’s a very enjoyable experience.
