50 First Dates the Musical review – This adaptation of the Noughties romcom about a woman with amnesia is suitably forgettable

Georgina Castle and Josh St Clair star as Lucy and Henry in '50 First Dates The Musical' - (Pamela Raith)

First there was Legally Blonde. Then Mean Girls. Then The Devil Wears Prada. Then Clueless. Now comes the latest 20-year-old romcom to be brushed off and given the musical treatment: 50 First Dates. The 2004 film starring Drew Barrymore as a woman with short-term memory loss and Adam Sandler as the besotted man attempting to win her heart anew each day has been spliced with songs and adapted for stage, with its debut run on at The Other Palace theatre until 16 November.

There’s already an obvious discrepancy between this latest attempt at nostalgia-harvesting and its many predecessors. Namely, the fact there isn’t any. 50 First Dates, while considered a commercial success at the time, garnered none of the cult following or devotion inspired by, say Mean Girls or Clueless. People have not been quoting it affectionately for the past two decades or naming it as their go-to comfort watch. It’s not even the most beloved Barrymore-Sandler collaboration (The Wedding Singer, with its Eighties soundtrack, was already given a musical makeover way back in 2006). The film, therefore, feels like a bizarre choice that raises a question early on and fails to answer it: who is this for?