It feels odd to give a much-loved kids’ TV character a critical hosing: but this one, at least, can soak it up. The endlessly cheerful aquatic buffoon SpongeBob Squarepants has been a family favourite since he first appeared on Nickelodeon in 1999, the ten-minute TV animations spawning three feature films. But the antics of this jaunty Aplysina Fistularis – yes, I looked it up – and his underwater mates don’t translate into a 150-minute musical. Especially one with a clunkily contemporary political message, where all the money has been spent on a strange assortment of famous names rather than on the staging.
The show, which premiered in Chicago in 2016 and New York in 2017, features 13 original songs written by artists as diverse as The Flaming Lips, Sara Bareilles and John Legend – though most of them sound uniformly bland. SpongeBob and his mates, gormless starfish Patrick and irrepressible squirrel Sandy, are played by able young musical-theatre professionals. But single-celled villain Sheldon J Plankton is bigged up by drag queen Davina De Campo. Pop Idol’s Gareth Gates plays the sourly bleating octopus Squidward at some performances: I saw his alternate, Celebs Go Dating’s Tom Read Wilson.
When the community of Bikini Bottom is threatened by a volcano, most characters conform to type. Spongebob wants to help. Sheldon and his restaurateur rival Eugene Krabs see a chance to make money. Squidward thinks it’s all about him. But then Kyle Jarrow’s script gets weird. Local politicians and press start accusing each other of misinformation. A doomsday cult of sardines forms around Patrick. Sandy is distrusted as a scientist and a surface-dweller. “Blame the Squirrel,” shouts an angry, MAGA-style mob.
Don’t worry, most of this will sail over the heads of kids. The vestigial plot is largely irrelevant to the recycling of tropes from the TV show and a vague message that we should love each other and ourselves. This stage musical isn’t cynical, just thin. It’s performed with rictus-conviction by the ensemble and an onstage band, on two-dimensional sets augmented with discarded plastic bottles and gold-sprayed dustbins. Tara Overfield Wilkinson’s production is basic, with a few nice touches, like the onstage performance of sound effects.
Lewis Cornay is perhaps too knowing and preppily teenage as the naïve SpongeBob but De Campo and Wilson give good value: Squidward’s anthem and multi-limbed tap routine I’m Not a Loser is a highlight. At the end, the Queen Elizabeth Hall was showered with bubbles, which charmed briefly and cheaply, then evaporated. There’s a metaphor there.
