ajhlovestheatre

POLICE COPS – THE MUSICAL

Based on an idea by Police Cops

Book and lyrics by Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe

Music by Ben Adams

Southwark Playhouse Borough – The Large, London – until 14 October 2023

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/police-cops-the-musical/

Police Cops is the name of the company behind this zany belter of a musical as well as the title of the show, which was seen in a drastically different earlier version at the New Diorama in late 2021. Zachary Hunt, Tom Roe, and Nathan Parkinson have become award-winning darlings of the comedy and fringe theatre circuit with their signature brand of athletic improvisation, keen-eyed parody and breathtaking invention, and on the basis of this piece of inspired lunacy, it’s not hard to see why.

Police Cops The Musical arrives at Southwark by way of Edinburgh, with new music courtesy of Ben (A1, Eugenius!) Adams, and is a leaner, more coherent beast than that earlier iteration, and the new songs and choreography (Olivier winner Matt Cole, judging exactly the correct amount of tongue to be left in cheek) are genuine upgrades. Crucially though, the anarchic spirit, ruthless observation and sense of often eye-wateringly bad taste fun, remains utterly irresistible.

“Is it shit theatre-making or is it inspired? You decide!” bellows Heath Ledger lookalike Tom Roe, traversing the stage wearing a hollowed-out TV set on his head having just been playing a news reporter, and it’s probably as good a summation of this utterly bonkers, hilarious musical as anything one can write about it. It definitely errs on the side of inspiration though, as it affectionately sends up the American TV cop shows and bombastic pop-rock of the 1970s and 1980s (“I’m an AmeriCAN! Not an AmeriCAN’T!”).

Back in the unreconstructed later decades of the twentieth century, men were men, women lacked agency and nobody batted an eyelid at some fairly horrible attitudes to anyone who wasn’t white (but especially Hispanic people), and the macho posturing and strong jawlines of the fictional police heroes belied the fact that most of them were seedy as hell. Probably the only way to contemplate such reactionary fare these days is through a veil of satire, and the musical treatment (cue much beatific staring into the middle distance while belting out the money notes) further ups the hysteria ante.

Ben Adams’s tunes are catchy as hell, and are partnered with some brilliantly pithy lyrics. I reckon Sondheim would have approved of the act two opener, a cri de cœur soft rock ballad where a woman working in a Mexican orphanage (Melinda Orengo, brilliant) laments full throatedly that there must be something more fulfilling than helping underprivileged children. Much of the humour is similarly sick (in both senses of the word). It’s the sight gags (of which there are many, and some of them are astonishing in their lo-tech ingenuity), the multiple running jokes, and the bravura performances that linger longest in the memory.

Zachary Hunt is rookie cop Jimmy Johnson, destined for a life in the Force after making a death bed (well, death pavement actually) promise to his sister (Natassia Bustamante, stunningly versatile) after she was mown down in a drive-by shooting. Hunt brilliantly maintains an air of baffled seriousness even when the plot, such as it is, goes into ever more outlandish territory, that makes it far funnier than playing it for laughs. That’s also true of Roe, gruffly delightful as his gravel-voiced sidekick, a disgraced police officer with a guilty secret. Nathan Parkinson is hilarious in a variety of roles, most notably as a Mexican arch villain with a penchant for dressing up like a cat.

Andrew Exeter’s lighting and neon-augmented grubby Stars’n’Stripes set are spot on and choreographer Matt Cole has a field day, creating work for this sublimely talented quintet who are as good as movers as they are comics. His work reaches a joyful apotheosis in a competitive hoe down number (you have to see it for yourself) and again in an audience participation section where the power of dance conquers racism (yes it does).

If this all sounds a bit scattershot, well, it is, and the overriding silliness may prove too much for some, but Police Cops The Musical frequently reaches that marvellous point where it is impossible to stop laughing. The universally lauded Operation Mincemeat, which it sometimes resembles and which also made the journey from the New Diorama to Southwark, has ended up in the West End. For Police Cops The Musical to follow that trajectory, it could do with a little tightening up in the second half, but it’s a rollicking two hours. The cast are as adorable as they are energetic, and work their socks off.

Seldom has a show compounded it’s clichés so effectively: from the dated tropes of last century television to the cheesily emotional excesses of musical theatre, it’s all observed with devastating accuracy, and served back up with sparkle, invention, energy and some serious belly laughs. A recently deceased corpse breaks into backing vocals, Mexican orphans wrestle, babies ping across the stage, sheets of perspex are waved around to create a rock video ‘wind’ effect, the hero repeatedly bursts out of his shirt for no good reason and a chorus of backing singers get stroppy and tell the lead vocalist to eff off… as I said, this is a bonkers evening. I loved it.