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By the BBC's Norman Miller
When Noel Coward made his famous remark about the potency of cheap music he probably wasn't thinking of pastiche space musicals.
But Return To The Forbidden Planet certainly illustrates the point.
To pastiche one work is standard, to go for two is bold - but then the show's creator Bob Carlton is clearly a guy up for a bit of boldly going.
The first jumping-off point, the classic 1956 sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet, is, of course, in turn a clever take on Shakespeare's The Tempest, a play which lends itself to inventive interpretations with its unspecific "magical" setting and evocative characters.
Onto this double-template, Carlton bolts on a cracking selection of pop and soul classics from the 50s and 60s.
This was a time when "cheap music" oozed emotional intensity - and the cast do a sterling job in performing the songs.
The "bolted together" feel of things does mean, however, that the introduction of some of the songs looks a tad forced
Rather than the seamless flow of the best musicals, you can sometimes almost hear the joins creaking as the script lurches towards some of the numbers (Great Balls of Fire being particularly lame).
To be fair, though, the show is really a comedy cabaret rather than a true musical.
The songs and jokes are more important than the story in between, which rarely makes any real effort to grab your attention, apart from the moments when the dialogue dips into the beauty of Shakespeare's original.
Inspired
But the songs are the thing, and it is great fun trying to guess which one they're working up to next, as well as picking up on the little bits of other tunes that are neatly thrown into the mix throughout.
And while the show lacks much real wit, as opposed to belly laughs, some of the Shakespearean misquotes (particularly one on the Ides of March) are inspired.
Musically, the cast are pretty much faultless. Adrian Cobey's pipe-smoking ram-rod stiff Captain Tempest and Philip Reed's guitar-hero Rustic "Cookie" stand out vocally.
The latter's epic guitar solo would have made Hendrix proud - as that is who most of it is nicked from.
But it is Frederick Ruth's robot Airiel (sic) who gets the biggest cheer of the night for his camped-up showstopper - which just goes to show that, cobbled together show or not, these guys know how to please a crowd.
The Return of Return to the Forbidden Planet is at the Savoy Theatre, London .
BBC News Online - Friday 14th December 2001
With thanks to Debs for sending this in
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