Maybe London theatre needs more quirky, snarky Canadian musicals about dead teenagers. This slight but darkly joyful work from 2009 by Jacob Richmond and Brooke Maxwell, a cult hit in North America, imagines six kids from a Saskatchewan school choir trapped in limbo after dying in a rollercoaster crash, while a glitching fortune-telling machine, The Amazing Karnak, decides which of them may return to life.
There’s not much to it beyond a series of sharp and witty songs in an impressive variety of genres, delivered by each character to justify his or her continued existence, and performed with norm-subverting, gothic glee. The Final Destination film series is an obvious inspiration, with evocative fairground horrors drawn from countless other stories. Director and choreographer Lizzi Gee’s production stutters during the passages of filler but is otherwise executed with panache. It’s frequently laugh-out-loud funny.
