Blippi the Musical – Apollo Theatre

Blippi the Musical continues at the Apollo Theatre, London until 4 September 2022.

Star rating: two stars ★ ★ ✩ ✩ ✩

Originally developed for TV and widely watched via YouTube, Stevin John’s Blippi has become very popular. A musical version for stage is therefore likely to sell well and the producers have just booked another run for Christmas.

Setting out to educate as well as entertain children aged two to seven, it’s effectively Play School for the 21st century – in a very American way.

Stevin played this character himself at first but now the role is played by other actors recruited in the country the show is playing in. The lead and the ensemble of five are, however, anonymous. I hope they are paid well because there are no programmes and no information online so they get no credit for what they do.

It’s highly energetic as the cast works, episodically, through the various songs, already familiar to the audience. ‘The Excavator Song’, complete with on stage digger, seemed to be the one the children seated near me were waiting for.

It’s actually too energetic. Blippi is never still. Not a word is uttered without an exaggerated action, leap or gesture and that gets wearisome to watch in a samey 70-minute show. I like to think there was a shower and a clean shirt awaiting him at the end too – growing sweat marks tell their own story.

Then there’s the sound. The whole show is delivered in loud, high-pitched, interrogative American – it’s like listening to a concert piece all on one note. To work dramatically it needs some variety.

Blippi and the four women and one man who form the ensemble are talented enough, and well choreographed,  but there’s no sense of naturalism so it begins to feel patronising. Even the actor playing Mo, who’s supposed to be an engineer mending the party machine, feels oddly false.

The songs are unmemorable: all based on simple triads in major keys and most of the lyrics are repetitive and banal. Even the two singalong nursery rhymes (‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’) use almost the same tune although I liked the way the latter was signed by the cast as they sang. The best bit was the 12 months of the year sung to the tune of ‘Frère Jacques’.

Susan Elkin