Zanna, Don't!

This high school musical with a difference is set in a world where homosexuality is the norm and heterosexuality is the love that dare not speak its name; where the school chess team are the sex symbols and the captain of the football team is naturally expected to appear in the school musical. Our hero, Zanna, is a self-styled 'love detective', equipped with a 'magic love wand' (less smutty than it sounds) and a bluebird sidekick, bringing couples together like a kind of gay Harry Potter turned Cupid. Everything is going swimmingly at Heartsville High until new-kid-in-town Steve and bookish Kate fall in love. The show is a warm, witty pastiche of everything from 'Grease' to 'High School Musical', switching between enjoyably upbeat gospel or rock 'n' roll and often insightful torch songs performed with bags of exuberance by the young cast.Some elements of the staging lack polish, there are massive logic gaps in the story, and for a gay musical it's all played remarkably straight. But this is possibly the fringe feelgood show of the year.