It’s 20 years since Tina Fey’s sharp-tongued tale of Plastics, Mathletes and non-regular moms laid bare the high-school jungle. The musical version – previously staged on Broadway, then filmed – brings the story bang up to date with gags about Ozempic, smartphone filters and social media. What it doesn’t have is one killer tune like Dead Girl Walking from Heathers: The Musical or It’s All Happening from Bring It On – or, indeed, those shows’ sleek, set-piece choreography.
Several songs almost get there such as Stupid With Love, performed by North Shore High newbie Cady (Charlie Burn), in the flush of “calculust” with Aaron (Daniel Bravo) from her math class. Each of the school’s clique of immaculate Plastics is given a solo. Georgina Castle, as the feared and revered Regina, arrives armed with a wicked glint and weapons-grade lipgloss, drawling her name as if she savours its taste. Her revenge belter Someone Gets Hurt, performed in the glow of the school photocopier as she disseminates her infamous Burn Book, is the high point of Finn Ross and Adam Young’s video design. Depth is given not to Cady but to Gretchen (Elèna Gyasi), whose despairing fragility makes her feel “like an iPhone without a case”, while Grace Mouat as the delightfully dim Karen perfects a dazed gait akin to Amanda Seyfried’s blankness in the role on screen.
The musical is framed as a cautionary tale and narrated not by Cady but her new art-freak friends Janis (Elena Skye) and Damian (Tom Xander) who quickly give away the ending – although tonight’s audience know the film off by heart, judging by the cheers that greet its ultra-quotable lines. Skye and Xander make a charming double act – and Skye is superb singing the bird-flipping anthem I’d Rather Be Me – but while their shared narration reinforces the message about friendship, it also unnecessarily repeats plot points and grows cumbersome.
Fey’s book adds some zingers but also sanitises some of the screenplay and the overall effect – with Jeff Richmond’s music and Nell Benjamin’s lyrics – is less corrosive from the start and drags towards the end. Newly arrived from being home-schooled in Kenya, Cady walks the halls of North Shore High in Illinois surrounded by mostly cheery students in a joyous opener, rather than being plunged into terror to the sound of Rip Her to Shreds as in the film. Cady’s journey from naif to Plastic clone is less carefully delineated and, strangely, Fey’s character in the movie, Ms Norbury, is underwritten. Zoë Rainey, playing that role, gets better lines doubling as Regina’s mum who, of course, is now on all the socials.
Within a pink proscenium arch, Scott Pask’s bright scenic design features wheeled desks and benches which create a brisk pace but too many routines are efficient rather than euphoric. The pristine school surroundings and several bland songs result in a sometimes flat production, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, that lacks the quirky gawkiness of Be More Chill. Some of the lyrics simply don’t sound like they would be sung by teenagers.
Katrina Lindsay’s costumes include a palette of pinks for the Plastics, a shimmering ice-queen catsuit and a lion mascot costume concealing some frisky activity. It’s often fun, and is well cast and impressively acted, but just needs an extra shot of dazzle and acidity.
At the Savoy theatre, London, until 16 February
