Lovestuck musical review – swooney tunes in a banger-filled rom-com

A new British musical comedy that turns out rip-snortingly funny, packed with original pop songs that stay lodged in your brain for days, and featuring the most loveable central couple since Benjamin Button fell for Elowen? Hello and welcome to Lovestuck, a fresh, adorable banger-filled rom-com that nudges the genre into unexpected territory while giving the audience such a fantastic time that they may not initially recognise how original it is.

Lovestuck has a fine pedigree, but not one that suggests the creatives should be capable of knocking out as good a tuner as this one. Book writer and co-lyricist James Cooper, co-composer and arranger Martin Batchelar, and director Jamie Morton are the team behind beloved comedy podcast My Dad Wrote A Porno, while songwriter Bryn Christopher is a triple platinum success in his own right.

Inspired by a true online news story about an unfortunate young woman trapped upside down in a toilet window, they’ve fashioned a dazzlingly silly but emotionally intelligent show celebrating the eccentricities of human behaviour, while highlighting the importance of being true to oneself. It starts off conventionally with 30-somethings Lucy and Peter lamenting their dating track records, then meeting each other online before moving into zones that are simultaneously relatable and utterly unexpected.

The lead-up to Ambra Caserotti’s winning Lucy getting caught upended between two panes of glass trying to retrieve an extremely personal item really needs to be seen to be believed. It involves an awkward date in a Mexican restaurant, complete loss of dignity, Tolkien, and a load of scatological humour. It’s underpinned with fabulous tunes, beguiling performances and a heart as big as the one that dominates the back wall of Tom Rogers’s window and brick set.

The laughs come thick and fast (Peter and Lucy are nerdy Lord of the Rings obsessives, he can’t hold his drink, she has a disdainfully self-critical inner voice, played with super-cool brutality by Bridgette Amofah), but Caserotti and Shane O’Riordan are so engaging that we genuinely invest in this “adorkable” pair. The audible enthusiasm in the room when they share their first kiss is heartwarming, and the chemistry between the actors is palpable, all the more remarkable because on press night, Caserotti was covering for advertised leading lady Jessica Boshier, who was injured in rehearsals.

@whatsonstage

Love at first sight? It starts in rehearsals! Here’s a taste of what you can expect from the new comedy musical Lovestuck ahead of its London opening. #Lovestuck #Musical #Theatre #Comedy #London @Lovestuck Musical

♬ original sound – WhatsOnStage

O’Riordan unleashes his ringing pop tenor on a succession of superior bops and ballads, and possesses a nervy, self-deprecating charisma that makes you root for this bumbling charmer. Caserotti, reminiscent of a younger Mazz Murray, is equally smashing, with an understated comic zest and warm, rangy belt. Crucially, both performers convey the rapture of making an authentic emotional romantic connection, but also the gutwrenching insecurities that come with higher personal stakes. They’re absolute stars.

So is Amofah doubling as Lucy’s unhelpful alter ego and an envied former school friend. Johan Munir is great fun as Peter’s deeply horrible city banker mate, while Marcus Ayton delivers lovely work as Lucy’s nursing colleague and high camp wingman. Holly Liburd reveals devastating comic timing as a terminally bored waitress and a superficial TV anchorwoman.

The lyrics are witty and densely packed, maybe so much so that it’s hard to register them all in one sitting, although that was never an issue for Sondheim. Lovestuck isn’t trying to be that musical maestro (the finale is a joyous anthem entitled “Everybody’s Got Their Sh*t”, for goodness sake), but it sets manageable targets for itself and scores bullseye after bullseye. The writing unerringly finds the middle ground between snarl and sweetness.

Lovestuck’s title song is probably the most persuasive earworm created for a British musical since the finale of Six, Lucy gets a second act power ballad about self-acceptance that packs such a punch because it is entirely earned, and there’s an ecstatically bizarre production number about her potential future as a cat lady, complete with voguing felines, that’s as exhilarating as it’s hilarious. Chi-San Howard’s choreography, Tom Rogers’s vivid costumes and Adam King’s transformative lighting are all top notch, and Alison Steadman provides a cosily subversive pre-recorded narration to the outlandish goings-on.

Lovestuck? I was lovestruck, and still struggling to get the soppy grin off my face.