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I hate to be a Grinch about ‘Seussical’. But somebody has to step up: the mean, green, Christmas-hating machine isn’t actually in it.
As the portmanteau suggests, ‘Seussical’ is a musical based on the works of Dr Seuss. Its original 2000 Broadway incarnation was criticised for trying to cram in too many of the great American author’s surreal kids’ stories. No danger with this 70-minute edit: it’s basically a composite of the two Horton stories (‘Horton Hears a Who!’ and ‘Horton Sits on the Egg’), with The Cat in the Hat tossed in because there would probably be an actual riot if there was no Cat in the Hat.
Being almost entirely about the escapades of big-hearted elephant Horton does give it a sense of coherence, but it also feels like it completely undermines the stated mission of jumbling together Seuss’s many iconic stories. There are allusions here and there, but there’s something a bit budget-feeling about the omission of so many faves, and it’s notable that it’s the edgier stories that have gone MIA.
Arguably none of this really matters because the songs – by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens – are unspeakably dreadful. I mean, they’re serviceable as generic Broadway fodder. But it’s difficult to understand how anybody could immerse themselves in Seuss’s weird, menacing rhymes and come to the conclusion that what this baby really needed was LOTS OF VERY EARNEST BALLADS. The dude next to me was singing along to everything, which rather unscientifically suggests the tunes (which you can listen to on Spotify) probably have their own audience, but I can’t imagine there’s a very passionate overlap between fans of Dr Seuss and fans of the songs.
Musical revivals at Southwark can be revelatory, often turning the intimacy of the space to their advantage, papering over the cracks in flawed shows with the sheer thrill of seeing it all up close. The performers in James Tobias’s production do give it some serious welly, and Marc Pickering’s silky smooth Cat is a cut above the rest of the show: a tip-top comedy performance with some proper stagecraft behind it. But without the razzle-dazzle of a full Broadway production to distract us, the sheer flimsiness of ‘Seussical’ is left painfully exposed.