Book and Lyrics: David Lindsay-Abaire
Music: Jeanine Tesori
Directors: Samuel Holmes and Nick Winston
Released in 2001, Shrek snubbed its nose at the Disney style of folk tale repackaging, creating a universe where all manner of fairytale and nursery rhyme creatures rubbed shoulders – an animated Into the Woods with fart jokes and a banging pop-rock soundtrack.
The 2008 Broadway musical, which played in the West End in 2011-13 and is revived here for a new UK tour, dispenses with the hits by the likes of Smash Mouth and John Cale for an original score by Jeanine Tesori. There are small nods to some of the movie’s hits – listen carefully and you might hear a reference to Eels’ My Beloved Monster – but generally, the music is more traditional pop musical fare: well constructed, performed with gusto but lacking that little bit of fairy dust magic.
Directors Samuel Holmes and Nick Winston (who also choreographs) elicit some great performances, though, especially from the ensemble cast. Whether it’s all the fairytale characters converging in the ogre Shrek’s swampland home after being evicted from their own, or a barnstorming tap dance by the Pied Piper and an assemblage of rats at the opening of Act II, there are some fine group performances.
Where the show struggles is with its leads. Joanne Clifton’s Princess Fiona – in the film, an interesting dichotomy of demure but self-confident princess and belching foil to Shrek – is played almost exclusively at the latter end of that spectrum, robbing the character of much of her interest. Meanwhile, Antony Lawrence’s titular Shrek, despite being the tallest and bulkiest performer on stage, struggles to maintain any sense of presence with a diffident performance that diminishes the ogre.
Brandon Lee Sears’ Donkey fares much better, the actor enlivening proceedings whenever he is on stage. But often the show seems hampered by a pull towards pantomime. While a fine theatrical tradition in Britain in its own right, the genre has a broadness and an approach to comedy that doesn’t sit as well with David Lindsey-Abaire’s book and lyrics as much as this production would hope.
A casualty of this approach is James Gillian’s Lord Farquaad. As the show’s antagonist, he offers little in the way of threat; and while Gillan is a great singer and dancer, his reduction to twee caricature here does little for show, audience or performer.
Indeed, the standout performance comes from the Dragon. The character is split between a three-person large-scale puppet and Cherece Richards, dressed in a matching outfit and acting as the character’s voice. Richards delivers a solo performance in Forever that will deservedly be remembered as the best moment of this production.
Elsewhere, though, the show struggles to maintain either pace or interest. By the end of the hour-long Act I many of the younger audience members become visibly and audibly distracted, and while the second act picks up somewhat, Shrek the Musical never engages the way the movie did.
Indeed, the most animated the theatre becomes is as the cast take their bows to the strains of the evening’s only number taken directly from the film, a rocky cover of The Monkees’ I’m a Believer. Musically it is nowhere near as strong as Lindsay-Abaire and Tesori’s compositions, but it is a whole lot of fun, which this production sorely needs.
Despite the talents of all onstage, Shrek the Musical cannot match the anticipation of those spurred to watch by their love of the original. Compared to the animated film, this Shrek is medi-ogre.
Continues until 30 September 2023 and then tours
