Being dead is no barrier to productivity these days — particularly if you are Jane Austen. The great English novelist, who would have been 250 this year, continues to pop up in endless new forms. Austentatious, in which performers improvise an Austen novel from audience suggestions, is playing the West End and on tour; Isobel McArthur’s ingenious comedy Pride & Prejudice* (*Sort Of) is touring the UK; and new musical Austenland waits in the wings. To name but a few.
And here is Clueless the musical, a distant cousin of Emma, derived via Clueless the movie, Amy Heckerling’s peppy, popular 1995 film that wittily spliced Regency matchmaking and friendship angst with the hormone-fuelled politics of an LA high school drama. Heckerling’s stage version had a 2018 US outing as a jukebox musical. Appropriately, it arrives in London after a makeover, with all new songs from singer-songwriter KT Tunstall and lyricist Glenn Slater, channelling 1990s nostalgia. (Yes, shockingly, any show set in that decade now classes as a period piece — way harsh, as the show’s central character Cher Horowitz might say.)
So Emma Woodhouse, Austen’s matchmaking heroine, becomes Cher, an irritating but adorable Beverly Hills schoolgirl with a rich litigator daddy, a perfect wardrobe, poor driving skills and an obsession with micromanaging her friends’ love-lives — whether they like it or not. She transforms grungy New York new girl Tai into an LA babe and tries to hitch her up with uber-wealthy, uber-obnoxious Elton (disastrously). Cher also convinces herself that, because new boy Christian shares her passion for fashion, he is her perfect match (rather than gay). Meanwhile, true love is lurking at home in the shape of her serious ex-stepbrother (not related), Josh, who like cares about the environment and stuff.
On paper, it’s a nice fit with the classic high school musical, combining a breezy, bubbly surface with a wholesome moral about self-knowledge. But, as Cher so often discovers, nice fits sometimes chafe. What emerges here is an enjoyable, upbeat show, driven by Tunstall’s evocative songs, but one that never quite wriggles free of its celluloid origins. Lines that work because they drop so casually and so nippily in the film — high school boys are “like dogs. You have to clean them and feed them” — feel framed and underlined here and there’s an overall sense of working too hard to convince. Rachel Kavanaugh’s staging has heart and vitality, but struggles to turn the material into something original for stage.
A talented young ensemble keeps the show bubbling. Emma Flynn is perfect as Cher — a lovely mix of sweet and smug — and there are tight, funny performances too from Romona Lewis-Malley as Tai and Max Mirza as Elton (who specialises in impressive eyebrow action). Lizzi Gee choreographs some fizzingly enjoyable dance sequences, riffing on 1990s moves, and Tunstall hits the heights with “Reasonable Doubts”, delivered with terrific zing by Keelan McAuley, who is great as Josh. But despite all this, and a stronger second half, the show never really finds anything new to say. It’s charming and fun but, in the end, I fear this is one result even Cher might struggle to negotiate up to an A.
★★★☆☆
To September 27, trafalgartheatre.com
