Our House

So Cyclops and I went to see Our House, the Madness musical.

When I first saw Our House in the West End about ten years back I thought it was a different class of musical. Often I think the storylines of musicals are a little shallow or silly, but this was something different. I thought this was a challenging, complicated and gritty play that happened to have songs in it – along the lines of Blood Brothers. And I thought that (90% of the time at least) the songs added to the play and advanced the plot rather than being shoehorned in. I bloody hate jukebox musicals, and despite Our House being based on the music of Madness I didn’t consider this to be one.

Well whatever they’ve done to this touring revival of Our House they’ve removed all of the integrity of the original. It has been dumbed down, as if someone said ‘lets make this *fun*!’ and didn’t actually read the story. It is now all cheesy High School Musical, except that High School Musical has a bit more charm, intelligence and charisma about it. And better dancing. And Zac Efron.

I’m sure if you’d not seen this before you could enjoy it for what it is, and I certainly enjoyed the songs and had a nice time being there. But… it’s a shame.

On the plus side the set looks great and they do some cool things with some stylised house shaped lights.