Puberty is painful but it can also be funny and this musical adaptation of the first of Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole novels is an entertaining romp through the dramas of teenage awkwardness.
The work of Pippa Cleary and Jake Brunger, it originated in 2015 at the Curve in Leicester (where Townsend’s stories are set) and reaches the West End after significant revisions.
Cleary and Brunger revel in the lovelorn disappointments of famously spotty diarist Adrian. At school, this budding poet and unappreciated intellectual has to hand over a steady supply of 20-pence pieces to class bully Barry while competing with best friend Nigel for the affections of poised new arrival Pandora. At home, he’s a naive observer of the breakdown of his parents’ marriage and his mother’s liaison with seedy neighbour Mr Lucas (a very amusing John Hopkins).
The score is clever without boasting many instantly hummable tunes — the dominant mode is pastiche — and the characterisation is broad, missing some of Townsend’s subversiveness. Yet the effervescent cast sell the story with a great deal of heart. It’s the young performers (16 of whom rotate in the four main roles) who are the true stars. Last night an assured Michael Hawkins made an earnest, angsty Adrian.
Luke Sheppard’s fast-moving production is deliberately a little rough around the edges, and the design by Tom Rogers is almost too densely crammed with period detail. But while this is at times a noisily unsubtle show, its defining quality is a warm and joyful energy.
Until October 12 (0843 904 0061, adrianmolethemusical.com)
