British Musicals: ‘The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole – The Musical’ (2017)

British Musicals: ‘The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole – The Musical’ (2017)

Book and Lyrics by Jake Brunger

Music and Lyrics by Pippa Cleary

Based on the bestselling book by Sue Townsend.

History

Jake Brunger (book and lyrics) and Pippa Cleary (music and lyrics) are a London-based musical theatre writing partnership, who met at Bristol University, where they were studying Drama and Music respectively. Their musicals together include: ‘Jet Set Go!’ (Edinburgh Fringe, Theatre 503 and Jermyn Street Theatre); ‘The Great British Soap Opera’ (Edinburgh Fringe and Jermyn Street Theatre); ‘Treasure Island’ (Singapore Repertory Theatre) and ‘Chicken Little’ (The Other Palace / Singapore Repertory Theatre).

In 2012, having been commissioned by Curve and the Royal and Derngate, Northampton (filming location for ‘Doctor Who’ story – ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’) to write a musical, they hit upon the idea of adapting Sue Townsend’s 1982 bestselling witty young-adult novel ‘The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾’. Having approached her literary agent, they were instructed to prepare a 10 minute extract from the proposed musical as a ‘pitch’, warning that previous proposed musicals of the book had been rejected by Sue. Undaunted they travelled up to Leicester to meet Sue, who arrived very tired having been up all night completing her novel ‘The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year’, and feeling that the story was ‘very dated’. Having played her their ten minutes, singing all the different character voices around the piano, an entranced Sue simply asked, “Where’s the rest of it?”. Having been told that that was all that had been written so far, she told them to “Well go and write the rest of it then”, selling them the rights for £1.

The writing took several years, with the duo regularly revisiting Sue Townsend for her input in relation to new songs. Its world premiere was at Curve in 2015, but unfortunately Sue had died the year before and so never saw the finished production. The production was directed by Luke Sheppard, designed by Tom Rogers, choreographed by Tim Jackson. It was then co-produced by the Menier Chocolate Factory (in association with Curve, Anthony Clare and David Ian Productions) in 2017, again directed by Luke Sheppard, before opening for a limited summer season at the Ambassadors Theatre, London, in June 2019.

Story

A timeless tale of teenage angst, family struggles and unrequited love, told through the eyes of tortured poet and misunderstood intellectual Adrian Mole (aged 13¾), the hapless, hilarious, spotty teenager who captured the zeitgeist of 1980s Britain. How will Adrian cope with the breakdown of his parents’ marriage, his first love, the school play, and the bullying, Barry Kent.

In A Nutshell

It’s hard being a misunderstood 13¾ year old intellectual.

Production

My seat was in the penultimate row of the stalls, just by the sound-desk, but I still had a good view. The staging was very clever with cast members pushing items of furniture in-and-out of what appeared to be cupboards. The four main children – Adrian, the lovely Pandora, his friend Nigel, and school bully Barry Kent – were played by child actors (there being four ‘teams’ – the cast being Michael Hawkins, Matilda Hopkins, Cuba Kamanu and Charlie Stripp on the night I attended [all excellent]), but the adult actors doubled as other pupils in school scenes (despite age and in one case a moustache [on a schoolgirl]). These included John Hopkins (Sgt. Dan Scott on ’Midsomer Murders’), and Rosemary Ashe (who I saw as Felicia Gabriel in ‘The Witches of Eastwick’ musical many years ago). The script heavily based on Townsend’s book was hilarious and I loved all the songs and eighties throwback references and fashions.

Very highly recommended.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole – The Musical runs at the Ambassadors Theatre, London until 12th October 2019.

Favourite Song

It has to be ‘The Nativity’, Adrian’s ‘intellectual’ take on the traditional Christmas school play, closely followed by ‘Intellectual Boy’, ‘Misunderstood’, 'Lost Love' (for the lyric - "Pandora, I adore ya!"), and ‘Look at That Girl’.

Did I Buy The Cast Recording ?

Yes, on CD.

Links

Production Website: https://adrianmolethemusical.com/

Original London Cast (Menier CF) Recording: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Diary-Adrian-Mole-Aged/dp/B07QY54CFP
Jake Brunger's website: www.jakebrunger.co.uk