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This Daddy is in no way cool
DADDY COOL
Shaftesbury Theatre
LET’S not beat around the bush: Daddy Cool, the Boney M musical, is dreadful.
From the patronising depiction of Trinidad in the opening scenes – it’s a cartoon world full of mushroom homes which look like they were dreamed up for Nintendo – to the desperate finale, this big budget show completely misses the mark.
Michelle Collins – Cindy Beale to you and me but croaky old prune Ma Baker here – might as well have come on stage beforehand and taunted us: “So you guys couldn’t get tickets for Footloose?”
Halfway in, hell, 10 minutes in, you looked at the giant parrot in the rafters, and wished you were somewhere else. Given the millions spent on Daddy Cool, it should be far better than this lazy mash of clumsy dance formations and below-par set pieces.
It’s the storyline that most musicals use, a Romeo and Juliet tale of forbidden love. But unlike shows that have gone before, it is difficult to find any affection for these cardboard characters.
There is no heart or passion when the two leads Sunny (Dwayne Wint) and Rose (Camilla Beeput) sing to each other and you wonder why they are bothering. Disco dancers Boney M were the first Western act to play in Soviet Russia but despite a serious footnote in history, nobody takes them seriously. Instead, we laugh at their dance routines and costumes rather than obsess about their back catalogue.
In fact after Rasputin, Brown Girl and that Christmas one about Jesus and Mary, there isn’t much more to work with. No wonder the show is padded out with songs made famous by others.
What promises to be a disco revue loses its glitter in its search for an urban, hip-hop edge. “Hip, street and down with the kids,” the directors must have thought as they dialled So Solid Crew rapper Harvey’s number.
But hardened So Solid fans wouldn’t be seen dead watching this nonsense and the paying punters, middle-aged folk with last trains to catch, just wanted to hear a few songs they know the words to. There were bemused looks at the ill-fitting rap contests.
There is a scene set in Camden Town in which dancers turn it into the place we would all like it to be. Everybody smiling, goths, parking wardens and the down and outs yet to be Asbo’d are up dancing in the sunshine. For a moment, your spirits are lifted. But then they start singing again.
Book Now
Until Feb 24
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