High Fidelity – Turbine Theatre

Picture: Mark Senior

High Fidelity continues at the Turbine Theatre, London until 7 December 2019.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity has had a circuitous route in its various adaptations. Five years later, the story of slacker record shop workers discussing music and failing at relationships moved from North London to Chicago for a feature film starring John Cusack.

In 2006, the Broadway musical adaptation further relocated the record store, this time to Brooklyn. That transplant did not, however, take hold: Tom Kitt and Amanda Green’s musical closed after just 14 performances and 18 previews.

So it was something of a surprise to see such a catastrophic failure announced to be the new Turbine Theatre’s first musical production. And it is an even bigger surprise to discover, through some judicious reworking, that High Fidelity is capable of being far better than its disastrous Broadway run would suggest.

The key to regaining the musical’s charm has been to bring the location back to its source: a grungy backwater record shop in 1990s Camden. Comedian and performer Vikki Stone has taken David Lindsay-Abaire’s book and Green’s lyrics, and made sure they sound authentic coming from the mouths of a group of North London nerds. Thus a “thrift store sweater” becomes an “Oxfam sweater”, and the show’s first song, ‘The Last Real Record Store’, becomes ‘The Last Real Record Shop’.

It may seem like a small, subtle change, but it does seem to relocate the musical’s heart as the dialogue comes closer to Hornby’s original work. The overarching storyline remains the same, though – shop owner Rob (Oliver Ormson) has been dumped by his girlfriend, Shanay Holmes’ Laura, and he wants to win her back.

The obsessive nature with which Rob pursues Laura – including, but not limited to, multiple calls to her home and office every day – could be considered stalkerish. And while Ormson keeps Rob’s forlorn antics on the right side of acceptability, he does keep a maniacal look in his eye befitting the threat.

Robbie Durham and Carl Au bring very different energy levels as the assistants in Rob’s shop – Durham’s Barry being the aggressive fanboy gatekeeper, compared to the passive, helpful Dick (Au). As the competition for Laura’s affections, Robert Tripolino steals all his scenes as tantric guru Ian, the musical’s most absurd character.

Compared to such levels of testosterone-fuelled posturing, it’s no surprise – however disappointing – that the fame romantic lead is so underwritten, Holmes never quite succeeding in imbuing Laura with a sense of presence. Bobbie Little’s Liz, the friend who acts as reluctant go-between, feels like a much more defined and interesting character.

Elsewhere among the ensemble, Eleanor Kane stands out as both the spectre of one of Rob’s previous failed relationships, and as Marie, an American singer-songwriter with whom Rob has a brief fling. Joshua Dever also impresses, his impersonations of both Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen becoming highlights of Act II.

For all the good work, though, Kitt’s music still feels and sounds like so many generic musicals from the mid 2000s. Juxtaposing that sound with the grubby setting of a back street record shop does chamfer off some of the most jarring edges, helped by musical director Paul Schofield’s band. But it is telling that the show’s most interesting musical moments are those where the score is deliberately emulating the styles of music Rob sells in his shop, and there are too many other moments where Kitt’s work falls flat.

The book and lyrics remain in better shape than the music, redeeming a lot in the show’s favour. Director Tom Jackson Greaves has clearly worked hard to convey a convivial, relaxed feel to this whole musical, and apart from a few over-enthusiastic choreography sequences which run counter to this ethos he largely succeeds.

The overall effect is one of a musical which, having abortively attempted to be a large-scale show, has found the right setting both geographically and in size. High Fidelity may have deserved to be a Broadway flop, but its place as a warm London Fringe show feels far more secure.

Scott Matthewman