Billionaire Boy The Musical – NST City, Southampton and Touring

Sophia Nomvete and Ryan Heenan in Billionaire Boy The Musical at NST City, Southampton. Picture: Manuel Harlan

Billionaire Boy The Musical continues at NST City, Southampton until 6 January 2019 and then on tour.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

David Walliams’ children’s stories are familiar to many of us. Recently dominating the BBC’s family Christmas programming with highly popular screen adaptations, Walliams’ third book for children, Billionaire Boy, has now been made into a new stage musical. And what might appear as an attempt to squeeze the last drop of revenue out of a popular children’s book turns out to be a wonderful experience.

Billionaire Boy tells the story of Joe Spud, the son of a loo roll tycoon, who has more money than he knows what to do with. When Joe decides to attend the local comprehensive he enrols on a journey that will make him question whether money is always the answer.

The real genius of the creative team – Jon Brittain (writer and lyricist), Miranda Cooper (composer and lyricist), Nick Coler (composer) – is their uncanny ability to mix moments of poignancy and unbridled joy with humour that rings of an awareness of the full scope of the audience.

This is not the typically nudge-nudge-wink-wink innuendo that one might find in the theatre at Christmas but a witty, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of timely comedy. Quoting the myriad lines that made me laugh out loud throughout would not do the dialogue justice (but the name of fellow schoolboy at Joe’s ridiculously expensive private academy, “Cameron Osborne Rees-Mogg Major Minor”, is the tip of a sharply satirical iceberg).

And somehow the humour is only one part of director Luke Sheppard’s hugely varied and thoroughly enjoyable production.

Ryan Heenan, as Joe, drives the work as a lovable and convincingly naive 12 year old. Alongside him are a small cast of artists who lend their talents to a spectrum of roles (many demonstrating their talents as actor-musicians too).

Lem Knights manages to transform from Joe’s one true friend Bob to an ambiguously-accented cleaning lady without flinching; Avita Jay switches from thrifty and gregarious shop-owner to gold-digging wag; Dean Nolan personifies both money-mad dad Len and the school’s culinary menace, and Sophia Nomvete embodies narrator, mother and teacher, often shifting roles while still on stage. All the other cast members also devote everything to each role taken on, their energy consistently standing out.

Underpinning all of this are the cleverly written and stunningly performed musical numbers that range from jubilant to affecting. Tasteful subversions that lie dormant in Walliams’ writing are brought to life in the music. The hero’s classic ‘I Want’ song is repositioned as a plaintive wish to be ‘Ordinary Joe’ with the final rising notes producing some impressive vocals.

It is no mean feat for a family show to convincingly employ a level of sophistication often reserved for more grown-up productions. The complexity of the lyrics is matched in Tom Jackson Greaves’ frenetic choreography which delivers great story-enhancing moments, while Gabriella Slade’s striking design is both sufficiently bold and attractive. The setting also delicately evokes the less overt themes and thoughts that the show is imbued with. Ideas about freedom and separation, poverty and loss.

At the end of the day, this is a show designed for families and it executes its design flawlessly. Is it silly at times? Yes. Do the cast of wackily colourful characters border on the pantomime-ish in their extremes? Of course. But does it also manage to pull off a complete experience suitable for anyone? It does.

And are there moments of pathos, suspense, and even prescient political commentary (particularly regarding the government’s treatment of education)? There are. This apparently absurd cocktail of comedy and sincerity really has to be seen to be believed – and, honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tom Martland