Clueless, The Musical: Can it match the film's greatness? As if!

Telegraph

13-03-2025

It proved an inspired move to transpose Jane Austen 's Emma to an affluent LA high-school scenario and the resulting romcom – Clueless – made writer-director Amy Heckerling successful and wealthy, gave the mid-Nineties a feel-good hit to remember, and entered popular parlance, gifting us 'Whatever!' and 'As if!'.
Whether it's such an inspired move for Heckerling to twist the film into a stage-musical is another question. Reasons for the film's enduring appeal remain plentiful: from the relatability of a match-making teen heroine (Cher, a role created by Alicia Silverstone) whose naïve, controlling ways are destined for a fall to the wit of the adaptation (Austen aficionados easily spot how the benignly disapproving Mr Knightley has become Cher's background pal Josh, etc). In theory, a nifty theatrical makeover is possible, even desirable. Still, I emerged mildly amused but mainly bemused as to who this show is aimed at, besides dedicated fans and nostalgists, and what it adds.
Granted, I'm not the 'target' demographic. But are millennials and Generation Z, especially those around the age of Heckerling's high-schoolers, being catered for either? The evening adheres to a pre-digital age, where it's cool to have a pager, despite the affinities between Cher and co's image-consciousness and the selfie culture of today. Off-Broadway in 2018, the show featured 80s and 90s songs restyled with different lyrics. That unusual juke-box mode has been binned; here, instead, songwriter KT Tunstall and lyricist Glenn Slater have fashioned numbers designed to sound in keeping with the period but which are so generic they don't ring with real-world authenticity.
A mood of perky theatricality prevails from the start, with Emma Flynn's Cher hymning the joys of her 'perfect' life in pat song – her sunny assurance has charm, and Flynn works her knee-high socks off, but the social satire feels muted, the slight story bloated. The script duly ticks off familiar scenes and lines, inviting laughs of more than recognition but not fully earning them. It's a Tussauds kind of night, down to Cher's plaid skirt and beret.
For a work whose message is about needing to stick out from the crowd, it's self-defeatingly conformist. After a first half that seems clueless as to how to raise our pulses, and oddly misses finding depth in Cher's backstory of maternal loss, the second half – like its heroine – redeems itself in a modest way.
Keelan McAuley's nerdish Josh – a neat fit for dishy Paul Rudd on screen – leads a boisterous number ('Reasonable Doubts') aiming rap-like legalistic fire at the interloping hunk Christian, who – as handsomely played by Isaac J Lewis – helps raise the roof in a jazzy-steamy party piece ('I'm Keeping an Eye on You'). And the climactic title number is undeniably catchy, with 'as if!' tartly woven into the duet lines between a suddenly self-aware Cher and an openly amorous Josh.
No one can accuse of Rachel Kavanaugh's production of not trying super-hard to please and while Lizzi Gee's choreography is blandly cheery the ensemble energy is laudably impressive. It's just a big shame that, despite all the effort, it's a 'whatever' not a forever kinda affair.