REVIEW: CRY BABY, the musical at Arcola Theatre 6 March – 12 April

‘The burgeoning youth culture of 50s rockers celebrated in style’ ★★★★

We tend to ignore the fifties. You hear about the heroic forties, when we defeated Hitler, and the histrionic sixties, when we defeated the older generation. 

But now playing at the Arcola Theatre is a forceful reminder that the fifties was when the social revolution happened – all the so-called swinging sixties did was take the credit for it. The burgeoning youth culture was not the invention of sixties hippies, but of fifties rockers. And this production of Cry-Baby celebrates that achievement in style.

Music and clothes were at the centre of it, and Cry-Baby pits preppy, conventional young Americans in their buttoned-down suits, with their virtue-signaling and their tinkling songs, against the new wave in their leather jackets and jeans, thumping out noisy and irreverent rock songs. The songs are clever parodies of both genres.

There’s a wafer-thin plot and a painfully contrived ending, but if it’s performed well, it makes for a wonderful evening in the theatre.

And it is performed brilliantly. There is a wonderful array of talent and athleticism on display on the tiny Arcola stage. Lively and energetic dance routines accompany the noisy and tuneful songs. There are 13 actors, drilled to perfection by director Mehmet Ergen and choreographer Chrois Whittaker, as they have to be, for the smallest error could have an actor falling into the laps of the front row of the audience. 

The cast is magnificent – as actors, singer and dancers, led by Adam Davidson as Cry-Baby himself. He belts out songs, he dances robustly all over the stage, he makes us laugh at his naivete and occasional pretensions, but he still has time to develop a character whose fate we care about, and we find ourselves caring very much indeed when he is unjustly sent to prison.  It’s a magnificent performance from a young actor with star quality. 

Every one of the thirteen strong cast deserves to be singled out for praise, but I’ll confine myself to one. Laura Buhagiar took over the key part of Mona at the last moment when the actor playing her fell ill, and she brought the house down with her rendering of Mona’s big song. She never put a foot wrong. You would have assumed she had been rehearsing it for weeks, instead of being hastily rehearsed last Thursday. That’s a professional for you.

Photography: Charlie Flint

CRY BABY, the musical at Arcola Theatre 6 March – 12 April

Book by Mark O’Donnell; and Thomas Meehan, songs by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger. 

BOX OFFICE https://www.arcolatheatre.com/whats-on/cry-baby-the-musical/