★★

“Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy”

Apparently, John Schlesinger’s 1969 American film “Midnight Cowboy” is the only X-Rated film to win the Best Picture Academy Award. Despite its bleak setting and outlook, the story of an unlikely friendship between two lost souls in New York City has been variously described as one of the greatest films of the sixties, and later deemed ‘culturally, historically and aesthetically significant’. Based on James Leo Herlihy’s novel of the same name, its success – according to the director – was largely down to its brutal exploration of loneliness. Both the film and the novel captured the quality of its time place in American cultural history.

Fast forward half a century and the ground-breaking story washes up in the hands of dramatist Bryony Lavery and songwriter Francis ‘Eg’ White who have shoehorned the bromantic fairy-tale of New York into a two-and-a-half-hour slice of musical theatre. A few years ago, we might have been more surprised, but as we have become acclimatised to outlandish choices for a musical’s subject matter, we have learnt to take this sort of thing in our stride. Claiming to be based on the novel, in reality “Midnight Cowboy – A New Musical” duplicates the film’s narrative by doing away with the central character’s back story and presenting it in disjointed flashbacks which, in this medium, get lost in the mix.

Joe Buck (Paul Jacob French) is a naïve yet damaged individual escaping his dead-end life in Texas by reinventing himself as a cowboy and heading off to New York to become a male prostitute. Success doesn’t come easy, to the point that he even pays his first client instead of the other way around. Hooking up with Rico ‘Ratso’ Rizzo (Max Bowden), he thinks his fortunes are on the rise until he discovers the rat Ratso has taken him for a ride. A mutual dependence grows, however, and after Joe moves into Ratso’s squalid squat, each individual’s isolation finds meaning and connection in a world of hustlers and ne’er-do-wells.

Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy, and we never feel the full force of the unexpected chemistry between the protagonists. Despite strong performances we remain unconvinced, and neither do we feel their desperation. Similarly, Joe Buck’s encounters steer clear of gritty realism. However, whenever we are drawn in, we are suddenly denied access by a song that comes out of nowhere. Francis ‘Eg’ White has form as a songwriter, and there is no denying that there are a fair few excellent numbers, but the score is too often at odds with the text. There are exceptions. Tori Allen-Martin’s gorgeously smoky voice curls round the sultry, soul-disco chords of ‘Whatever it is You’re Doing’. We are in Serge Gainsbourg territory here, with a soft-porn gloss. Bowden’s ‘Don’t Give Up on Me Now’ has a real Tom Waits quality, reprised later by French who throws in shades of Randy Newman. Elsewhere, however, the songs tend to halt the narrative or simply cloud the intent. ‘Every Inch of this Earth is a Church’ strips away the inherent comedy of the classic scene where Joe Buck mistakes a religious fanatic for a pimp. And blow jobs and ballads have never been known to go well together.

It could be ground-breaking, and there is at times a surreal, cartoon-like quality to the show. But it cannot conceal the tameness of this interpretation. As if sensing the emotional detachment, French cranks up the passion during the closing scene, but we feel that it is unearned and inauthentic. There is poignancy in there somewhere, but like the dreams of the hapless heroes, it remains out of reach.

THE CREAKERS

Queen Elizabeth Hall

★★★★

“Gather up your kids and have a good time at The Creakers!”

The Creakers is a musical version of Tom Fletcher’s much loved children’s book of the same name. It’s about a group of kids who have to rescue their parents from a sinister world lurking below their beds. It’s a refreshing change from all the overly familiar panto fare on offer on London stages at the moment. As musical adaptations go, however, The Creakers fails to capture the magic of its original material. That’s not because it isn’t a talented production at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank. But this version is a cautionary tale in how difficult it can be to adapt a brilliant story in book form, for the stage.

Set in Whiffington, a town with a waste disposal problem as its name suggests, The Creakers tells us about Lucy, a girl who is “different” though we are never told exactly how. Her single Dad is also the town’s rubbish collector, which adds to her problem of social acceptability. Most of the first act of the musical is about establishing the characters in the story, with frequent references to the social pecking order. There’s also a scandal brewing about the rubbish. The Mayor of Whiffington has decided to get rid of the overflowing rubbish by dumping it in the ocean. This is the inciting incident that sets the main story of The Creakers in motion. It turns out that a bunch of mysterious creatures called the Creakers depend on that rubbish for their food, building supplies, and even for their creativity. At night the Creakers emerge from under children’s beds, and feast on the mess and debris that kids (and their parents) have left lying around. Deprived of their sustenance, the Creakers take revenge by kidnapping the parents of Whiffington. Lucy and the kids have to figure out how to get them back.

It’s a good story, and it plays on childhood fears that everyone, child and adult alike, can identify with. The sustainability theme in the accumulating rubbish is a bit trickier, but from a staging perspective, it gives an imaginative set designer and costume designer lots to work with. Andrew Exeter and Ryan Dawson Laight take full advantage. But the rubbish is also a distraction from the main action. That’s Lucy’s goal of extracting the parents from the underground world of Woleb. (Yes, I figured it out.) And it takes the whole of the first act of The Creakers to get to the point where we finally meet these wonderful creatures, and the show takes off.

Despite the slow moving first act, and energetic songs that don’t always advance the action, The Creakers will succeed in winning you over by the end. The performers give their all to the many different roles they are called on to play, and that includes manipulating the puppet Creakers (designed by Lyndie Wright who knows everything there is to know about puppets.) Tom Jackson Greaves manages both the direction and choreography with flair in a space that is really a concert hall, and not a theatre. The small band produces a big sound with the superior acoustics of the QEH, and it was a treat to actually see them in the second act. Lucy (Eloise Davies) and her friends Ella (Iona Fraser) and Norman (Ally Kennard) are the main movers and shakers in the show but there’s a wealth of talent to see in minor roles all undertaken by a seamless ensemble.

If you’re wondering whether you can risk taking your child to a show that deals in accumulating rubbish and monsters lurking under the bed, have no fear. There’s a guaranteed happy ending. And no one will be surprised to discover that the Creakers are, in fact, the Save the Planet warriors we have been waiting for. As one satisfied customer remarked “I won’t have a nightmare tonight—I’ll have a funmare!” So ignore all the dramaturgical quibbling above. Gather up your kids and have a good time at The Creakers!

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★

“Nick Winston’s staging is slick but lacks pace and energy”

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Reviewed on 10th April 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Pamela Raith

Previously reviewed at this venue:

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

THE CREAKERS

Queen Elizabeth Hall

★★★★

“Gather up your kids and have a good time at The Creakers!”

THE CREAKERS

Queen Elizabeth Hall

Reviewed on 27th December 2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Pamela Raith

Recently reviewed at Southbank venues:

THE CREAKERS

THE CREAKERS

THE CREAKERS