‘The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole: The Musical’ review
‘I had a great time watching Adrian Mole, and would be very surprised if anyone in the audience came out feeling any other way.’
I first read Sue Townsend’s The Diary of Adrian Mole (13 and ¾), at around that age, and the only conclusion I garnered from it was that I was definitely not the target audience teenage boy. I’m excited to say that I got much more from Ooook'!s wonderful production, which was just so fundamentally fun.
Adrian Mole: The Musical was, as the West End original cast member (and DST alumnus) Ben remarked when I mentioned the show, an ambitious choice, given that Adrian is a bit too young to do a college bar crawl or post on LinkedIn. The task of playing children is onerous, and can be catastrophic if done poorly, but Al Palmer knocks it out the park. She is absolutely terrific as Adrian, capturing his early teenage boy energy with uncanny brilliance. Her characterisation is so vivid throughout that Adrian’s absurdities felt as natural as anything, and her comic timing was largely on-point. In her solo songs, it would have been nice to see her more fully dominate the stage space, but this was more than compensated with some brilliantly vibrant singing performances.
Other standouts included Moritz Afridi, whose voice shines out in a cast of brilliant voices. He’s truly a joy to listen to, and owns every scene he’s in, oscillating between treacherous, naive, and endearing without ever losing grip on the character. Rhiannon Morgan is another wonderful singer who communicates such a nuanced cascade of emotions, complex and yet visceral, simultaneously strumming and pulling heartstrings. She too has an excellent proxemic instinct, capturing moments of intimacy, vulnerability and steadfast resistance through her physicality and naturalistic performance. Oli Butter captured the emotional beats of his character excellently; much like his counterpart, his performance felt effortlessly real. The two particularly shine: their reconciliatory duet, which saves the nativity scene (!), was my favourite song of the show.
Massive commendation needs to go to the tech team for some of the most creative yet fluid lighting I’ve seen in DST. A team of four (Zac Jackson, assisted by Leyla Aysan Montoya, programmed by Lucy Smith and operated by Anabelle Lo, working under Production Manager Evie Collins) suggests an emphasis and it showed; complex, vibrant and extravagant, yet rarely overboard, rendering the musical numbers a visual feast. Some of the mics were a bit volatile, but the impact on the overall performance was minimal. Similar plaudits must go to the band; I have never described a musician as having comic timing, but there were numerous laughs garnered by well-timed staccato notes or wah-wah pedalled-guitars, and I didn’t notice a note off the whole time. There were even instances where they seemed to reset into the beat on the fly when the timing didn’t quite click, which I imagine, in a big band, is surely a flex.
Directors Jed Godfrey and Jamie Strand, assisted by Louis Rutman, imbued the production with such evident love from the jump. Many of the dance sequences, choreographed by Lexi Praxl and Catriona Eke, were startlingly creative, and added so much dynamism to an already electric show. Sometimes the cast seemed a little unsure on the choreography, with some moves more confident than others, but the ambition and flair were irresistible. This impact is developed by a wonderful set; multi-layered, used expertly as a theatrical playground in the big numbers, yet immersive in many of the set’s corners and crannies when it needs to be. The set changes, whilst extensive, were largely seamless also. The costumes also slapped; Afridi’s punk get-up in particular: an iconic fit.
I had a great time watching Adrian Mole, and would be very surprised if anyone in the audience came out feeling any other way. I am so glad I’m not a teenager anymore.
By Horatio Holloway.