As the High School Musical juggernaut has comprehensively proven, there’s a big market for children’s shows with songs. Into the ring, and aiming for a slightly younger audience, steps Mike Stock, of Eighties pop hit factory Stock, Aitken and Waterman. The result is a terrifyingly perky piece featuring his frighteningly upbeat new five-strong group Go! Go! Go!
The songs, co-written by Stock and Steve Crosby, are admittedly catchy, in a plugged-into-the-mains-with-Red-Bull sort of way. It’s Dean Wilkinson’s horrendous by-numbers script that’s the problem, unrelentingly saccharine and patronising in equal measure. Younger theatregoers deserve far more — nuance, for example, and genuine emotion — than this glaringly false bonhomie and panto-style franticness.
Our toothsome, fearsome five get admirably excited about "sock emergencies" and other such piffle, as their trip to Holiday Bay looks set to be scuppered by the Fluffalope, a sock-snaffling purple puppet who swiftly becomes the only one on stage without a rictus grin. Nearly two hours of this is enough to make audience members of any age wonder whether Holly, Gemma, Kirsten, Carl and Steve are actually fuelled by liquid Haribo mix. Go! Go! Go! away and find some charm, I wanted to holler.
Until August 30. Information: 0844 847 2475, leicestersquaretheatre.com
The Go!Go!Go! Show
Leicester Square Theatre
Leicester Place, WC2H 7BX
