We can affect outrage at the creepy idea of them coupling up (there’s on-stage smooching and off-stage insinuated sex with this toy-boy) – and we can get doubly indignant about double standards (no way would the premise be acceptable if the genders were reversed). Yet the artificially accelerated rites of passage is a smart way of contemplating nature’s magical transformations. Where’s the actual harm? Theatre is a playground of ideas, after all.
There’s fine support from Matthew Kelly as the company boss, lighting up like the giant keyboard over which he niftily steps with his protégé in a delighted duet. At the other end of the age spectrum, genuine juvenile Jobe Hart impressed on opening night as his faithful best-friend Billy.
Sure, it’s cheaper to snuggle up on the sofa and watch the original; they’ve supersized the ticket-prices, adding to the challenge a family outing faces what with this being programmed at term-time. Compared with many other mega-musicals one could mention this is small fry. And yet my inner adolescent won out over my cynical older self. It’s big, occasionally clever but above all, it’s morale-boosting fun.
Until Nov 2. Tickets: 0844 871 2118; tickets..co.uk
