This is a real oddity. A '70s Broadway hit in Bob Fosse's original production, 'Pippin' is a twee, shapeless musical with a lame book by Roger O Hirson and likeable, poppy tunes by Stephen Schwartz ('Wicked'). Like 'The Fantasticks', it has as its central motif a troupe of strolling players; they relate the story of Pippin, son of Charlemagne, and his Candide-like quest for a meaningful life.
Mitch Sebastian's new staging – with dazzling digital designs by Timothy Bird – resets the action in a virtual world, a cross between a 'Tron'-ish video game and a suicide chatroom. Here, Harry Hepple's Pippin journeys through scenarios of martial glory, orgiastic sex, politics and claustrophobic domesticity.
The singing is strong and the choreography, recreated by Chet Walker from Fosse's characteristically sensual, witty moves, is stunningly executed. But the story is so incoherent and the visuals such an unrelenting assault of light and colour that the whole feels like a bad trip.
It's a bold, radical revival, with a certain dizzying appeal. But the show's hectic energy drains away through the holes it's riddled with.