Review: FUN AT THE BEACH ROMP-BOMP-A-LOMP!!, Southwark Playhouse

Advertised as “Grease meets Squid Game”, Fun At The Beach Romp Bomp A Lomp!! manages to go from the ridiculous to the sublime, even if it does lose its way every now and then.

The initial instinct of any sane individual to distrust anything that comes with two exclamation marks is tempered by knowing that Mark Bell is involved. The genius of The Play That Goes Wrong (which he also helmed) is as much to do with its incredibly precise direction and overwhelming sense of spoofy fun as anything else and something of that has carried over here.

Set in 1950s USA, we meet six teenagers all looking to win the grand prize of King or Queen of the Beach. Standing around in front of 2D cutouts, the two stereotypical same-sex trios eye each other up: in the girl group, the pretty-but-dim Chastity (Janice Landry), extroverted Chickie (Katie Oxman) and shy Mary Joe (Ellie Clayton) are looking to meet some cute boys to fall in love with and get married to (what else?) while cool-but-dim Dude (Jack Whittle), extrovert Dickie (Damien James) and shy Joe (Tom Babbage) are also hot to trot. A series of deadly games - including a dangerous dance competition, ducking under an electrified limbo pole and a surf contest in shark infested waters - whittles down the contestants until only one is left standing. 

Brandon Lambert’s music and lyrics lean heavily on pastiches of well known songs. While the melodies skirt close enough to the original numbers to be recognisable (and far enough to presumably not risk legal action), the lyrics are generally humorous twists on the original. “Mature Women Don’t Whine” is a smirky version of The Four Seasons’ “Big Girls Don’t Cry”; likewise, The Temptations “My Girl” is the basis for “My Woman” of and “A-P-P-R-E-C-I-A-T-I-O-N” is a cheeky take on the Otis Redding song “Respect” popularised by Aretha Franklin. Some numbers come with more comedy than others: The Shoop Shoop Song-inspired “It’s In His Peck” sees Chickie getting increasingly frustrated by her friends’ desperate cluelessness on how to tell if a boy likes them. 

Martin Landry’s book knows this era and art form well. His characters speak with unironical optimism and, even with their deliberately flat personas, he finds ways to make them endearing. The plot has an authentically sturdy preoccupation with death; frankly, I was surprised not to see Godzilla emerge from the waves or one of the characters reading Neville Shute’s On The Beach. He’s obviously a study of spoof movies - a stuttering gag brings to mind Team America: Police Force while there’s more than a few nods to Airplane! The sexual mores of the day - or, at least, their screen representations - are ridiculed with a knowing wink; there probably hasn't been a more coy reference to fellatio since the Flake adverts of the Eighties.

Fun can be stupidly funny but also suffers from trying to stuff two gallons of half-baked gags into a one-gallon bag. It is perhaps unfair that this musical exists in the same universe as the ultimate Fifties spoof Top Secret! (arguably a better film than any in the more acclaimed Naked Gun series). Running jokes (like the Dude considering himself a bum or Chickie and Dickie’s matching clucking fetishes) limp on far longer than they should. The most immediate comparison here is the masterful low-budget parody Police Cops The Musical but that production has become more polished over time since I first saw it in 2015. What I saw then - a show with more than a few rough edges but full of heart and insight - is what I’m seeing here and I look forward to see where Fun goes next.

Fun at the Beach Romp-Bomp-A-Lomp!! continues at Southwark Playhouse until 22 June.

Photo credit: Danny Kaan

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