The film on which this is based was a post-Grease vehicle for Olivia Newton-John. It was a premiere league turkey and won the inaugural Razzle Award; in fact, it inspired them. Twenty-seven years later someone had the idea of this stage musical adaptation. Bonkers? Well, obviously not as it was a Broadway hit, clocking up more than 500 performances. It’s taken eight years to get to London and it turns out to be a preposterous story and as camp as a decade of Christmases, but with its tongue firmly in its cheek it proves to be rather irresistible.
A Venice Beach artist has created a chalk picture of the muses. These immortals arrive from Mount Olympus with the chief muse transforming into a mortal Aussie woman, who sets out to help him. They go about persuading a local property developer to let them open Xanadu, a club which was built but never opened, as a roller disco. Bonkers. The music by ELO’s Jeff Lynne and John Farrar is typical 70’s pop disco with numbers like Evil Woman, Physical and the title track hits at the time. Douglas Carter Beane’s book cheekily sends up anything and everything, including the show itself. It’s hard not to succumb to its crazy charms, particularly in a full house cheering and whooping as if its a cult show they’ve seen many times before.
Nathan M Wright’s choreography is a hoot, featuring roller skating of course, including one duet between the chief muse on skates and the artist in a phone box! Morgan Large’s design is a riot of colour and includes more glitter, and glitter balls, than you’ve probably seen in one place before. Paul Warwick Griffin’s staging uses every opportunity to get a laugh. It really is rather hard to resist.
Samuel Edwards is terrific, in particularly fine voice, as naive artist Sonny. Carly Anderson’s Aussie accent is (intentionally) all over the place, which results in an awful lot of laughs and she milks the role for all it’s worth. There’s great support from the other six muses (two played by men!), but it’s a particular joy to see Alison Jiear as evil muse Melpomene in a stage musical once more.
I have a sneaky feeling this is going to become a Rocky Horror-type cult – we certainly haven’t seen the last of it.
Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog 
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