This is not the first time the tale of the Pied Piper has had the hip-hop treatment. Way back in 2007, dance company Boy Blue won an Olivier award for their rewrite of the German legend, their plague of rats busting out tight street dance routines. This time round, the story is powered by beatboxing, and by writer/composer/performer Conrad Murray, who also plays the Piper. It is a show with the best of intentions, a family musical that’s serious about its commitment to community – a cast of local children flood the stage at one point – there’s audience participation (practise your hi-hats), there are messages about friendship, freedom and, above all, the power of music. None of that can you cast shade on.
The main problem might be the complete lack of dramatic thrust. The story is based around the mayor of Hamelin, who also runs a pie factory full of rats and exploited workers who only get seven minutes for their lunch break. In subplots, there’s the mayor’s daughter, who just wants to sing but is too shy (except that she actually does a lot of singing), and a fellow factory worker in some kind of crisis that feels very surface until suddenly she’s about to jump off a building (the lyrics aren’t always clear, which undermines a lot of the detail and thus Murray’s desire to make this a story of class struggle as well as pest control). The emotional payoffs are not earned, and the major reveals – a pie full of rats, the stealing of the town’s children – all pass like just another beat.
It is a huge challenge to create a score with only seven voices and no backing track, so respect to Murray for that, although the arrangements do sometimes feel bare, the harmonies not always sound, the performers occasionally breathless – to be fair, they’re working hard, and on the go constantly to keep the stage moving. And there’s talent here, beatboxer Alex “Apollo” Hardie especially, with an encyclopedia of sounds in his percussive armoury. Pied Piper is a worthy idea, sincerely and energetically performed, with the seeds of something more, but they haven’t pulled it off, yet.
• Pied Piper is at Derby theatre until 22 February; then touring
