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Review: Kidults! The Musical (Bridewell Theatre)

Updated: Oct 25

Review by Sam Waite

 

⭐️

 

Note: Due to the content of the show, this review features references to discriminatory language, mistreatment of and violence towards disabled individuals.

 

A new musical setting off on a mini-tour of three London venues, Kidults first finds itself at the Bridewell Theatre. An ensemble of collaborators, led by Rooms101 Productions’ Mark Tunstall as narrator, performer, book writer, lyricist and co-composer, aim to bring to life one particularly eventful school year in a show that promises to “re-parent your inner child” by delving in to the endless highs, lows, and in-between of adolescence.



Opening number “Always Young” brings us into the world of these “Kidults” (adult performers starring as secondary school children) who are then introduced to us largely through song and dance. Imagine Cats if you will, but the Jellicles are Kidults, the Ball is a mass gathering on the playground, and the Jellicle Choice is who will ascend as new King and Queen of the Playground – I can't be the only one flashing back to Disney's Recess, where Third Street Elementary’s playground was ruled from atop the jungly gym by sixth-grader King Bob.

 

Tragically, in the twenty-or-so musical numbers (twenty-four if we count the overture and finale reprises) the Kidults are not given equal time to be established as complete characters, and some get little room to breathe at all. An urge to make everyone a main character results in just the opposite, with no one standing out and many of the ensemble becoming all-too-easy to forget. A schoolyard bully, the popular girl who keeps her position by mocking her classmates, a nerd with a specialist interest that his schoolmates immediately deem weird – the classic stereotypes are here en masse, and the actors simply don't have enough time to create something more meaningful.



Similarly, the presence of seven credited composers leaves the production lacking in a musical identity, a problem throughout its aesthetic elements. The band play well throughout, but the dissonant voices behind the scenes are working constantly against them. Also confusing and lacking clear connection, the circus theming of the poster and programme becomes increasingly confusing in its disconnect from the material, and the heavy-handed eye makeup feels too stylised, too Burton-esque for the caricatures of childhood archetypes suggested by the wardrobe.

 

Disconnected and difficult to follow, the lyricism lacks any cleverness or truly memorable lines – the repetition of certain key phrases proved confusing, unclear whether this was a poor creative choice or simply cast members losing their place. More egregiously, a handful of slurs find their way into the lyrics and dialogue, one of which becomes the subject of a poorly-executed joke about being “cancelled” and continues to repeat the word despite one character explaining to another that it is offensive. Obviously, we won't be repeating the words used here, but the offensive language I caught (and which characters encountered no consequence for) were outdated terms for those of a smaller stature, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and those with developmental disabilities. In Kidults, such abrasive terms too often land as throwaway jokes, and leave a sour taste in their wake.


 

This same insensitivity comes through elsewhere in Kidults, where themes purported to be explored (sexuality, gender, neurodiversity) are granted vague allusions at best, and made the punchline of childish jokes at worst. Two young men are frequently alluded to as a potential couple, and their desire to kiss one another shown quite prominently – however, both the characters and the material cast this quickly aside each time as a silly little joke, because wouldn't it be so crazy if they really kissed?! Then there's the issue of No Name Jones, a child whose parents simply didn't decide on a name for them, and whose gender is never clarified. An interesting way to introduce gender identity and non-binary discrimination into the plot, any opportunity to refer to No Name as “they” is instead replaced by alternating “she” and “he,” and at one point a malicious, mean spirited (and once again, unpunished) “shim.”

 

Granted, you could argue that stories featuring such discriminatory terms can do so effectively, establishing the realities of the characters’ daily lives. Where Kidults fails these characters, and anyone who could feel represented by them, is that they are reduced to solely these traits – no one is built into a fully-dimensional human being, and so their struggles are given no resolution, no satisfactory outcome. When a character suggested to be “artistic” rouses the ire of a school bully through his selective mutism and nervous response (a friendly grin when unable to form words) he is taken to the woods and more or less left for dead, a hideously uncomfortable sequence resulting in not just a mere “sorry”, but the genuine implication that this experience helped him to finally overcome his long-standing social issues. Elsewhere, an unusually short girl is mocked with the aforementioned slur, and the outcome is that… life is better now she's taller? And that her being short was… holding her back as a person?



Not that the other characters are particularly well-drawn either, with the American girl literally donning Stars and Stripes in her outfits, and her boyfriend being a confusing 1950’s caricature of a would-be rocker. Direction is inoffensive for the most part, but unimaginative and occasionally awkward in having characters dash in and out of the auditorium as needed. The ensemble, also led by Tunstall as the too-menacing “Narrata” (narrator, which I didn't get at first either) try their best to make the show fun and exciting, but a combination of the weak material and some less-than-stellar performers in the mix prove a stumbling block. The songs, non-descriptive and quickly forgotten as they are, still fare better than much of the dialogue, which in the second act devolves into too-long scenes that are painfully blunt in their teen-angst exploration.

 

Nondescript at its best and genuinely harmful at its worst, Kidults tries to take in too many ideas but succeeds in developing none – more to the point, the storylines that are remembered once all is said and done are the ones that irritated, offended, even outright harmed those who the show is claiming to represent. The concept of adults performing childhood as they both remember and imagine it is an interesting one, and that combination of memory and imagination could have resulted in something clever, something that bridges generations in a world where so many grow up too fast. It was hard to walk away feeling anything but dismay, disgust, and deeply concerned at no one involved having raised issues with the production's content before it had reached a London stage.



 With recent history bringing to light the importance of art, and how central our relationships with storytelling are to our sense of self, creatives have a responsibility more than ever to their audience and to their themes – those who are all-too-often the victims of abuse come to the theatre, and to stories as a whole, for safety and salvation, and on paper Kidults sounds like the perfect show for them to both find and lose themselves in. Instead, today’s youth would find themselves either completely glossed over, or knocked down once more for the sake of a cheap laugh. With so many feeling so disenfranchised on a daily basis, I would urge the creators of Kidults to ask themselves if such harmful content is truly the impact they want to make to the theatre.

 

Kidults! The Musical plays at the Bridewell Theatre until October 26th before runs at the Courtyard Theatre and 229 London

8 comments

8 Comments


CBKM BOCU
CBKM BOCU
4 days ago

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mark
Oct 26

This is a review which was updated again one day ago. So the review is changing. I have been in contact with Sam. Online troliing is not what real theatre reviewers do. This is continuing and is now a legal matter. We have had real theatre reviewers state that this is not offensive at all and that the show is a delight. Amongst many other lovely comments.

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Replying to

Hi Mark,

For transparency, I updated the review yesterday when I became aware of a typo which made a sentence's meaning entirely unclear.

Aside from clarifying an existing point, nothing has been added or removed, and my original word document can confirm this.

As I've stated previously and to several people, I genuinely believe you created Kidults with pure intentions, and have personally taken issue with what I perceived (as reviews are always, ultimately, the reviewer's own opinions) as unsuccessful handling of the themes.

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Speaks so much about the reviewer not what was being reviewed

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arty_83
Oct 26
Replying to

How?

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K Webb
K Webb
Oct 23

As a child of the 60s I can very definitely report that this stuff went on well into the 80s and 90s, that there have always been misfits - whether Goths, cross dressers, rockers, mentally ill, punks, learning disabled, educationally challenged, poor, rich, black or bullied. "Harmful content"? The reviewer needs to get over their oh too fragile self and read the programme - it's a piece of reflective history not a Panorama broadcast!😂



Edited
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K Webb
K Webb
Oct 23
Replying to

Who said it was fine with us back then? Not me! But turning over stones in memories and recollections that I guarantee everyone over 45 would recognise is not harmful. Young people aren't living on a new planet. The difference between now and then is social media and pile-ons like you are attempting with your remark "bonfide delight" 😆

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