I’m used, in a rather cynical way, to
seeing standing ovations on opening nights; however, it’s been an age
since I saw one this widespread and genuine. It was deserved. Most
stage musicals now seem to be retooled versions of beloved movies, and
if the movie in question is generally considered a stone classic it
takes a lot of care and skill to avoid shredding it. The late Harold
Ramis’s 1993 comedy survives pretty much intact.
This is partly due to a canny script by original screenwriter Danny
Rubin. When misanthropic TV weatherman Phil Connors finds himself in an
endless time-loop repeatedly reliving February 2 in the hick town of
Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (home of the Groundhog Day
is-spring-here-yet ritual), Rubin knows both how to narrow the
geographical focus in order to avoid too many clumsy “outdoor”
sequences, and how to complement this by deepening the emotional story
not just between Phil and his producer Rita but elsewhere around the
town. Act Two, for instance, begins with a poignant number from Nancy,
Phil’s first bedmate, about being seen merely as a sexual object.
And those numbers... As a musical comedian, Tim Minchin consistently
fails to light my fire, but as a theatrical composer he is almost
peerless. This production reunites the
Matilda team of Minchin, director
Matthew Warchus, designer Rob Howell (who has come up with a beautiful
exploding-Toytown set) and choreographer Peter Darling, and it radiates
a more mature form of that musical’s combination of mischief and
defiant sentiment, from Phil’s first lyric “Ugly bed/Ugly
curtains/Pointless erection” to a heartwarming country number (I’m
afraid the programme does not include a song list) when Phil and Rita
finally get together at the town dance.
Carlyss Peer makes a more abrasive, less immediately fascinating Rita
than Andie MacDowell. Surprisingly, the far bigger challenge of
stepping into Bill Murray’s shoes is the one more easily pulled off:
Andy Karl lacks the extreme poker-faced sardonicism, but adroitly runs
the gamut from suicidal despair (when we see him apparently teleport
across the stage from topping himself to wake up in the same bed yet
again) to dedicated altruism. And like Phil’s outlook on life, the show
keeps getting better every time I see it.
Written for the Financial
Times.