The 2006 two time Academy Award winning film, Little Miss Sunshine, has become a musical comedy from the Tony Award-winning duo James Lapine & William Finn and the European premiere of this “Road Musical” has stopped off, this week, at Theatre Royal Brighton.
For those who haven’t seen the original movie, it tells the story of Olive, the youngest of the Hoover family, who has her heart set on winning the Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest. Her family, all troubled but well meaning, are willing to support her and so they all load into their dilapidated yellow camper van to make the 800 mile trek from Arizona to California.
There are, of course, inherent issues with trying to recreate such a trip on the confines of the Theatre Royal stage, but the use of a revolve does at least help to create some sense of motion – the problem is the vehicle.
The success of the film was based, pretty firmly, on the intensity of emotion created by placing six angst-ridden and emotional people into the incredibly claustrophobic VW van. If the stylised version of the van is a platform on which six chairs are placed, the overbearing feeling of being trapped is completely lost – and, to be honest, suddenly bursting into song and wandering around the stage doesn’t help.
Perhaps more could be done with the lighting to help create the right atmosphere, but there seem to be quite a few issues in that department already, with follow spots resembling searchlights at times.
Gabriel Vick and Lucy O’Byrne, as Mr and Mrs Hoover, both sing well in the two most memorable numbers in the show, What You Left Behind and Something Better Better Happen, although the latter is not really a great number to take the audience into the interval. They also have good chemistry as a couple who seem to have somehow lost their way together and the focus on the shifting dynamics of their relationship resonates all too well with many in the audience.
Uncle Frank, played by Paul Keating, has a tremendous scene with Olive (Sophie Hartley-Booth, Lily Mae Denman and Evie Gibson alternately) as, following her incessant questioning, he explains that he is gay and recently tried to commit suicide after his relationship, with one of his students, failed. Some might say that adding comedy to this situation is wrong, but the audience react well to the juxtaposition.
The Hoover’s eldest child is Dwayne (Sev Keoshgerian) who has taken a vow of silence until his dream of training to be a jet fighter pilot is realised. Throughout the first act he is the epitome of a stroppy and belligerent teenager only to reveal a much more sensitive soul later in the production.
Mark Moraghan is obviously loving every moment playing the very wayward Grandpa Hoover. Very much a lover of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, Grandpa may sing about being The Happiest Man in the Van, but that kind of lifestyle has a way of taking it’s toll and, of course, it does.
There are some wonderful “bit-parts” in the production to make good use of the ensemble. Buddy (Ian Carlyle) the host of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant is as camp as can be, but you can tell he has a mean streak too. Linda (Imelda Warren-Green), the paperwork obsessed Bereavement Registrar, is pure comic genius and Kirby (Matthew McDonald), who assists when it looks like all is lost and adds even more heart to a show that already has bundles of that.
Other characters don’t work so well. The “Mean Girls” (Alicia Belgarde, Scarlett Roche and Elena Christie) who appear as characters in Olive’s mind to provide doubt, and to berate her are, of such a different age to the lead character that there is little connection or conviction in their performance and the accidental chance meeting between Frank, his former boyfriend and the boyfriend’s new partner, in a toilet, halfway to California, makes absolutely no sense at all.
Unlike the six people in the van, this production suffers from a lack of direction. If it wants to be a comedy
then it needs to be funnier. If it wants to be a musical then it needs a better score. If it wants be be an
enjoyable night out then it works but, like many enjoyable nights out, it’s not always easy to remember
them the next day!
*** Three stars