Queerguru’s Andrew Hebden checks into REHAB (The Musical)

Rehab The Musical ☆☆☆☆
The Playground Theatre, LondonQueer

At the beginning of the first number in this musical, it may cross your mind that The Playground Theatre is too small. By the end of the number, it will be more than evident that it’s Rehab The Musical that is too big. This irreverent new show has the punch and panache to claim its future on a big stage in the West End. For now, though, it will have to do with fizzing over the edges of its first venue.

Kid Pop (Johnny Labey) is a 27-year-old boy band mega star in the 90s. He has the fame, the looks, and the girls. He also has a booze and cocaine habit that makes Absolutely Fabulous look absolutely sober. His star is burning a little too bright and it attracts the attention of the law. Rather than going to jail Kid Pop thinks he has gotten off easy by accepting a 60-day stint in rehab.  Unknown to him his shady agent Malcolm Stone (Keith Allen) is plotting to keep him on the front cover of the tabloids by setting him up for headline-inducing scandals while he is in there. During his stay, as the sad stories of the other attendees make him rethink his own life, it’s not clear who is really there to help him or hurt him. In fact, it starts to look like it might suit some people to see him dead at the age of 27 so that, like Joplin or Hendrix, his eternal flame will burn profitably forever.

From the opening song ‘Wanker’, an ode to Kid Pop’s odious behaviour, it is obvious that the songs are going to provide this musical with sharp edges.  Introducing the other rehab residents, the sex addict, the overeater, the tan obsessed, and the substance abuser they each get a song that illuminates their problematic behaviour. It becomes clear that the storyline is driven by a series of confessions that painfully or humorously reveal everybody’s truth. The song ‘Poor me, pour me another one’ demonstrates that they are all on a shared path.

It’s also the music and lyrics (by Grant Black and Murray Lachlan Young) that demand that this show makes it to a bigger venue. Three, in particular, stand out. When Kid Pop’s love interest ex-stripper Lucy Blake (Gloria Onitiri) sings Museum Of Loss, a power ballad about what her choices have cost her, it’s a thrilling spotlight moment, due to the quality of her performance and the song. The audience deserved to be further back just to create the space for proper reverence. Meanwhile the humorous The Cheese Song, full of exceptionally gouda puns, should have had a stage full of dancing cheeses to fulfill its ridiculous potential. And finally, the raucous Everybody’s Taking Cocaine could and should have rocked a stage and an audience five times the size. They were all, in their own unique ways, big show-stoppers.

It’s a show set in the time before social media but its themes about celebrity click baiting are bang up to date. Combining that with a well-chosen cast and songs that go from brash to ballsy to beautiful Rehab the Musical’s cup runneth over. Try not to overindulge.