Director: Jonathan O’Boyle
Adaptor: Jordan Ross, Lindsey Rosin, Roger Kumble
“It’s okay, you can laugh. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
Ah the 90s – probably the best decade for both teen films and pop music. It’s no wonder that the era gets heavily mined for nostalgia, and the Cruel Intentions musical is a worthy crown on the act.
Based on the film of the same name, Cruel Intentions is a modern American high school retelling of Les Liaisons Dangereuses (in English, Dangerous Liaisons), a 1782 French novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. Catherine Merteuil (Nic Myers) and her stepbrother Sebastian Valmont (Will Callan) are killing time by playing with the lives of those around them for their own sadistic amusement. When Catherine is dumped, she makes a wager with Sebastian to seduce her ex’s new, innocent love interest, Cecil Caldwell (Lucy Carter), who has already moved on in her school crushes to her student music tutor Ronald Clifford (Kevin Yates). Sebastian however is already on his own mission to corrupt the virginial new girl Annette Hargrove (Abbie Budden). When the two interests align, the sexual manipulation is on. The wager? If Sebastian fails, Catherine gets his car. If Sebastian succeeds, he gets something he has always wanted – Catherine herself.
It’s an admittedly complicated plot, but essentially, everyone wants to have (or is trying to avoid having) sex with someone, and it’s all the fault of two bored little rich kids. The manipulations are well woven so as to not make the premise too confusing, and there’s so much well crafted sexual tension that the audience quickly stop caring and just enjoy the ride (if you’ll forgive the pun).
Jukebox musicals are notoriously hard to do well, as often they feel like the songs are just rammed in anywhere if they have a vaguely relevant lyric or two. It can happily be reported that Cruel Intentions bucks this trend admirably. By and large the songs are integrated as well as any original score, and lyrics have been tweaked to allow for this. It rarely feels unnatural for a character to be bursting into a top ten hit. Even the one or two that are a little off, such as using Breakfast at Tiffany’s between a pre-courtship Cecile and Rolland, still make some kind of sense in context. Some songs are used for comedic effect, largely with side characters. Wannabe is reimagined as a fantastic gay anthem for secret couple Blaine Tuttle (Luke Connor Hall) and Greg McConnell (Joe Simmons), and No Scrubsbecomes cringe in the mouth of Cecile’s Mother, Mrs Bunny Caldwell (Gabriella Williams), not to mention Lucy Carter’s hilarious rendition of The Sign when informed that she has had an orgasm. Carter is in danger of completely stealing the show as Cecile, and her childish naivety turned up to eleven makes any scene with her in it a total joy to watch. Other songs are true belters, especially those given to the two leads. Nic Myers’ Genie in a Bottle – performed in a corset no less – is a highlight, as is her duet of Only Happy When It Rains with Will Callan. She is a powerhouse performer, absolutely disappearing into the roll of manipulative seductress. You almost want Catherine to win. Callan’s Sebastian is no slouch either, and his performance of Colourblind is an especially beautiful scene, as is his Lovefool duet with Abbie Budden. And this is all before they start with the nostalgia filled mash ups! All of the musical numbers are excellently underpinned by some heavily 90s influenced choreography, and it’s a joy every time the ensemble appear on stage as backing dancers – choreographer Gary Lloyd has totally nailed the era while never directly copying the music videos.
The simple staging of Cruel Intentions allows for a slick progress through the story, although this does stall a little in Act Two as the ballads become more dominant and the scene changes necessarily start to take place in blackouts due to the ramp up of action. Staging in Act One is a riot of interesting movement, while Act Two has more standing still and singing at the forth wall – it would be good to see a little more variation in this to keep the energy up. However, the show never completely stalls even as it slows. The cast are always engaging and making the characters their own rather than falling back on replicating the famous originals, even as the script sticks very closely to the film. On that note, this is a time capsule of the 90s, and that does include the language and opinions of the time. Cruel Intentions does not avoid using sexist and homophobic slurs, and has a racism subplot. None of these bigotries are presented as good things nor are they overly lingered on, but they are present and may be uncomfortable for some audience members (especially the homophobia, as it is not expressly called out as the sexism and racism are).
Whether you are a fan of the original film or not, Cruel Intentions is an excellent adaptation and a fantastic piece of theatre in its own right. It is a template for how jukebox musicals should be done, and the cast and creatives are all to be applauded. Grab your best 90s fashion (as costume designer Polly Sullivan has) and be prepared to pick up some earworms. Take a fan as well, this is a seriously hot and bothered show!
Runs until 10th May 2025
