Cry-Baby, The Musical: Bold and brash – though you pine for Johnny Depp

Telegraph

12-03-2025

When the musical Hairspray (based on the John Waters film) became a smash hit on Broadway in 2002, its adapters clearly hoped to replicate that success by turning to another of the subversive filmmaker's works: the 1990 campy cult classic Cry-Baby.
Waters's parody of the teen rebellion movies of the 50s starred a very fresh-faced and chiselled Johnny Depp, who deliciously spoofed his heartthrob image in his debut lead role by playing Cry-Baby, the rock'n'roll outsider with a heart of gold. Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan's 2007 theatrical adaptation wasn't a Broadway triumph and closed after 68 performances (despite four Tony nominations). Nearly two decades later, it's finally getting its UK premiere at the 200-seater Arcola.
Director Mehmet Ergen does his best with the material and delivers a bold, brash and at times very funny production. The film is utterly ridiculous, and while the musical captures some of that energy, it doesn't go the whole hog in the way that you wish it would. There are forays into the absurd, with songs dedicated to kissing 'with tongues' and taking the polio vaccine ('if you value the use of your legs' is an actual lyric), yet it still comes out feeling like a weaker version of Waters's oddball vision.
In this social satire of 1950s Baltimore, Allison is one of high society's preppy 'squares', but becomes infatuated with the titular James Dean-ish rebel and is drawn into the world of the denim-clad juvenile delinquents known as 'the drapes' (who are ostracised and blamed for society's ills but are really just misunderstood). Lulu-Mae Pears plays the Sandra Dee-type Allison with a compelling doe-eyed naivety while Elliot Allinson is perfectly cast as her snivelling, smug 'square' suitor Baldwin – who reveals a malicious side. As for Baldwin's boy band the Whiffles, kitted out in sweater vest and brogues, they bring a manic enthusiasm to their upbeat doo-wop songs and are so superficially clean-cut you can almost hear them squeak during their delightfully cringey dance routines.
While the Whiffles lay on the smarminess with a supersized trowel, the gang of 'drapes' – comprising the disfigured Hatchet-Face, the sexy Wanda, the crooner Dupree and the knocked-up Pepper – should feel larger-than-life but are curiously underpowered by comparison. They may sing and brag about being 'bad', but you're never convinced of it.
This is especially true of Cry-Baby himself. Depp, who leant into the kitschy vibe and managed to make the character edgy and sensitive, is an impossibly cool act to follow, but this musical seems determined to cast the high-school 'bad boy' (played by Adam Davidson) as overly sincere and puppyish, a portrayal which robs the character's Elvis-like rockabilly tunes of their sexiness. In the film, Cry-Baby's father was a terrorist; less edgily in this version, the wrongful execution of his pacifist parents becomes a plot point.
Still, Ergen's production is lively enough that you're swept along and almost forget your reservations, leaving on a high with the gloriously superficial, satirically buoyant closing number Nothing Bad's Ever Gonna Happen Again. The Arcola's intimate space is judiciously used during the big dance sequences (which are slickly choreographed); the cast almost burst off the stage and carry that energy into the audience. Like Grease on speed, Cry-Baby the Musical is a fun if fluffy evening's entertainment.