Long before the post-university romance of David Nicholls’ novel One Day came to the screen, there was his coming-of-age story Starter for Ten, featuring a first-year university student from Essex, adapted for film in 2006.
That film, with its star-studded cast (James McAvoy, Rebecca Hall, Benedict Cumberbatch) and 1980s soundtrack, is partly the basis of this musical adaptation about Brian Jackson’s quest to get on to the TV quiz show University Challenge – and also get the girl, of course. Directed by Charlie Parham, it begins faithfully, with Emma Hall and Parham’s book replicating the film’s screenplay (also written by Nicholls). But it becomes more original and amusing, if madcap, when the book swings off-piste and goes its own way.
