“Being dead is no barrier to productivity these days – particularly if you are Jane Austen,” said Sarah Hemming in the Financial Times. Improvisation show “Austentatious” is playing in the West End and soon to go on tour; “ingenious comedy” “Pride & Prejudice”* (*sort of) is already touring; and a new musical, “Austenland”, is waiting in the wings. Until then, we have “Clueless, The Musical”, based on the hit 1995 film. Inspired by Austen’s “Emma” and starring Alicia Silverstone, it “wittily spliced Regency matchmaking and friendship angst with the hormone-fuelled politics of an LA high school drama”. With “evocative” original songs by KT Tunstall and lyricist Glenn Slater, the musical is also “charming and fun”, but alas, it “never quite wriggles free of its celluloid origins”.
It’s by no means a great musical, said Alun Hood on What’s on Stage, but its sense of fun is “irresistible” – and fans of the film will love it. Amy Heckerling, who wrote and directed the film, is behind the “laugh-out-loud funny” book; the musical numbers are clever and “infuriatingly catchy”; the staging has a “cinematic fluidity as scenes merge slickly into each other”; and the production features a star-making turn from newcomer Emma Flynn as the main character, Cher. A “scintillating comedienne”, she commands the stage, and is “adorable enough to mitigate against most of Cher’s more obnoxious characteristics”.
Hers is one of several terrific performances, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian, yet the production itself is a “paler version of the film”, and has less “creativity and soul”. And though there are two “belters” (“Reasonable Doubts” and “I’m Keeping an Eye on You”), most of the songs are a bit “flat-footed”.
Visually, too, the adaptation falls short, said Clive Davis in The Times. “If the film is all Beverly Hills swank, the production values on display here are more Bicester Village.” The young cast deserve plaudits for their fizzing, committed performances, but overall this is a serviceable spin-off from a much-loved film, not a must-see show.
Trafalgar Theatre, London SW1. Until 27 September