SPACE FAMILY ROBINSON. To 26 May.

London

SPACE FAMILY ROBINSON
by Julian Butler and Stephen Butler

Pleasance Theatre To 26 May 2002
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 6pm
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS 020 7609 1800
Review Timothy Ramsden 12 May

Good cast and lighting, but the material doesn't seem set to travel.There's nothing so grand a musical can't trivialise it. And no genre lends itself more easily to the ludicrous than sci-fi. No surprise then, as bland synthesisers pound out yet another thumpingly obvious rhythm or swoon with ballad yearning, that amidst sheer volume, supported by a panoply of coloured lighting (the production's strength), the Butlers' new show gets lost in a narrative void.

Its corny American family are somehow transported skywards by their dog, a supercharged pooch mentally enhanced several thousand-fold. What they (like the plot) leave behind is an Earth a century forward where puritanical revolution has brought about a return to primitive life, and mass enslavement.

Though, as we're also processing exposition about an interplanetary gangster's search after a poor misunderstood galactic serial lover-killer, and another planet, somewhere (also soon left behind), whose mild inhabitants are at death's door, this may not be exactly what was going on.

Death's door, incidentally (and it's very incidental), doesn't seem to open, as nasty Nefarius spares the world in question in exchange for angelically white-clad Sakura piloting him towards the murderous Ms Starbird, his one sort-of-true love. Just as he's, sort of, hers. They deserve one another. They're that horrid, they almost deserve the songs they have to sing.

Sakura's true destiny, couldn't you guess it, is to arrive exhausted at young Brad Robinson's feet and awake his real sexuality, without which sub-theme no minor musical is complete.

And this one is completely minor. Good or evil, human or extra-terrestrial, no-one escapes the script, music, costume and cosmetics cliches. And, yes, cheap music is potent, the performers are capable and hard-working (though their choreography's trite). This may be an asteroid in the universe of musicals but, eventually, it beats boredom by a Plutonian mile.

Perhaps, across the galaxies, there's a place where such confections count for something. Maybe it's among the denizens of Planet Earth. But I doubt it's in such numbers to help this musical travel the light years from Fringe to West End. If I'm wrong, there's always the one-way ticket to planet Zog.

Mom Robinson: Helena Biggs
Dad Robinson/Puritan: Tim Barron
Vanity Headcase/Eurasian/Space Pilot/Nymphoid Girl: Nicky Callanan
Muttley/Puritan: Stephen Carlile
Gruusum Ennjin/Androgen/Eurasian/Space Pilot/Caveman: Mark Carroll
Dodo/Holster&Bolster/Vacillate/Space Pilot/Caveman: JJ Criss
Nefarius/Eurasian: Hadrian Delacey
Lucy Robinson/Eurasian: Laurie Hagen
Sakura/Puritan: Arvid Larsen
Brad Robinson/Eurasian: Stuart Piper
Starbird: Hannah Waddingham

Director: Oliver Campbell-Smith
Designers: Matt Gates, Toria Lancaster
Lighting: Alan Paterson
Sound: Thames Audio Ltd.
Musical Director: Julian Butler
Choreographer: Martin Wimpress

2002-05-15 08:50:18