Mrs Doubtfire
‘Mrs Doubtfire’ is the latest in a seemingly endless post-pandemic string of musical takes on retro movies. ‘Back to the Future’, ‘Dirty Dancing’, ‘Groundhog Day’... if you were born in the ’80s, the West End has decided that by now you're obviously loaded and ready to be milked of your money like a pantomime cow. Only this genuinely funny comedy musical doesn't feel like a cash grab, thanks to its twenty-first-century jokes, perfectly paced book, and silly voices galore.Writer John O’Farrell has worked on ‘Have I Got News For You’ and ‘Spitting Image’, and some of that topical flair can be seen here. Freshly divorced dad Daniel is a comic actor whose voiceover recording seshes ingeniously break out of the American world of the story: he begins with a witty theatre pre-show announcement, then breaks into non-naff impressions of Prince Harry and Boris Johnson. Refreshingly, this production has resisted the temptation to cast a famous funny person in the role, and musical theatre actor Gabriel Vick pulls off both the gags and the songs with impressive aplomb.This story’s serious bits aren't quite as well-handled. O’Farrell struggles a little to make Daniel’s ex-wife Miranda (Laura Tebbutt) more than a boring disciplinarian foil to Daniel's relentless zaniness (here, she gets an improbable fashion career and a 2D hunky love interest). Karey and Wayne Kirkpatricks’ lyrics don't zing with the kind of psychological insights or witty couplets musical theatre fans dream of. But...