ajhlovestheatre

CRY-BABY

Book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan

Songs by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger

based on the Universal Pictures film written and directed by John Waters

directed by Mehmet Ergen

running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including interval

Arcola Theatre, London – until 12 April 2025

https://www.arcolatheatre.com/whats-on/cry-baby-the-musical/

Some shows are surprise hits but the 2008 Broadway musical Cry-Baby was a surprise flop. The formula, and source material, was similar to that of Hairspray which ran over six years on Broadway and enjoyed a lengthy West End run and starry movie version: again a cult movie by John Waters, that notorious doyen of sick humour and high camp, gets the musical treatment, full of outlandish characters and period-specific tunes. Watching Mehmet Ergen’s wonderfully entertaining UK professional premiere for the Arcola, it’s surely impossible not to have a good time, while also getting hints as to why the show failed initially.

For Cry-Baby we’re once again transported back to Waters’ hometown of Baltimore but this time it’s 1954 and rock’n’roll is running riot along with paranoia about communism and the atomic bomb, and anybody who’s a bit “other” is the source of suspicion and derision. Once again, Hairspray book writers Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan have done a capable job of bringing the screenplay to the stage, but, unlike with that earlier show, they barely homogenise the excesses and bad taste of the original movie. 

So we get jokes about the electric chair and polio vaccines, a comedy number about extreme mental illness, arson, promiscuity, and a re-enactment of the panicked reaction to a perceived nuclear attack. It’s a spicy brew, served up as comedy, and is often helplessly, macabrely funny, which is perhaps not surprising as co-author Meehan is also responsible for the books of The Producers and Young Frankenstein so has form when it comes to spinning edgy material into musical comedy gold. While Cry-Baby isn’t necessarily that, it’s a real hoot. The first act is mostly set-up, and occasionally feels a bit too in-yer-face and frenetic to be really satisfying, but the pay-offs in the second half are mostly delicious.

Misunderstood leather clad bad boy Cry-Baby (Adam Davidson) falls for goody-two-shoes Allison (Lulu-Mae Pears, divine) much to the horror of her grandmother and protector, society grand dame Mrs Vernon-Williams (Shirley Jameson, elevating deadpan delivery to majestic comic heights) who has a major skeleton in her closet. The show juxtaposes the squeaky clean, upwardly mobile and all-white Baltimoreans with the much more diverse (both racially and morally) crowd Cry-Baby hangs out with, and depicts Baltimore as a place of wholesome picnics and privileged country clubs or low down music and drinking dives (which, frankly, look a lot more fun) depending on which side of the social divide you’re on. Designer Robert Innes Hopkins provides a unit set backed by a grimy looking giant star spangled banner, with panels being dropped in to denote different locations. It’s hardly spectacular but it has a scrappy, garish quality that suits the material better than a big, glossy presentation.

Songwriters David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger give the wealthier kids a raft of sunny lounge-music numbers while Cry-Baby’s gang gets more of a free-wheeling Rock’n’Roll sound, all twanging guitars and insistent drums. As a score it’s a decent pastiche of 1950s popular music but it has little theatrical heft and the tunes aren’t memorable, although the lyrics have real zip and bite. The vocal performances are all spectacular though, none more so than the roof-raising belt of Chad Saint Louis as Cry-Baby’s sidekick Dupree, in a sensational debut. Pears and Davidson sing their souls out and beautifully negotiate the gear changes between angsty and blissfully romantic. Davidson is also a fabulous dancer (Chris Whittaker’s choreography has a comforting familiarity about it, which works given the time period the show is set in, but also a genuine dynamism that is all the more remarkable for being performed in such a limited space) but can’t quite eclipse memories of Johnny Depp in the original film.

Pears really is lovely, and as heartfelt as it’s possible to be in a show this campy and irreverent, as the sweetheart who isn’t quite as naive as everyone thinks she is. India Chadwick, Jazzy Phoenix and a thrilling voiced Kingsley Morton are terrific as the trio of contrasting women in Cry-Baby’s gang, and Eleanor Walsh is a bona fide camp showstopper as Lenora, the deeply unhinged young woman who’s convinced that Cry-Baby is going to marry her. ‘Screw Loose’, her big number, a doo-wop infused declaration of love and mental instability (“Darling, it’s so hard to be sixteen and schizo / But I know it’s worth the cost / I’ve made up my mind which I’ve lost”) is deeply un-PC but gosh it’s hilarious, and Walsh delivers it like her life depends on it.

Arguably the best song, Mrs Vernon-Williams’ tarantella flavoured ‘I Did Something Wrong, Once’ sees the guardian of community morals makes a startling confession, and doesn’t sound like anything else in the score. It’s a welcome change in tone, and performed with an irresistible, very funny combination of restrained relish and bruised dignity by Shirley Jameson, who almost stops the show cold. The finale ‘Nothing Bad’s Ever Going To Happen Again’ may not be half as catchy as Hairspray’s ‘You Can’t Stop The Beat’ but it goes with a slightly manic satirical swing as the fully company asserts that the future of America is assured, bright and trauma-free: you can almost smell the irony in the air.

The prevalence of that irony is maybe Cry-Baby’s biggest weakness, apart from a scarcity of really memorable songs. It’s very enjoyable, but it’s so busy winking at the audience and daring us to be outraged that it loses sight of the fact that really great musicals have characters we can really care about. The cartoons-made-flesh that populate this raucous, bonkers version of 1950s America are fun to spend time with but never come close to touching our hearts. That’s a flaw in the piece and, to a lesser extent, the staging, but this glorious cast really couldn’t do a finer job of selling it all to us. It’s like Grease gone sour, and it turns out there’s a lot of twisted joy to be found in that.