Picture: Mark Senior
Rehab – The Musical continues at the Playground Theatre, London until 17 September 2022.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
One of musical theatre’s greatest strengths is when a show takes inspiration from real-life times of difficulty and creates something positive out of them. Bringing light to shade and turning trauma into triumph, it lends itself to a journey that audiences can invest in, and hopefully sends them home with a song in their heads and a smile on their faces.
Hoping to warm London theatregoers’ hearts this month is Rehab: The Musical. Created by Murray Lachlan Young, Elliot Davis and Grant Black (son of legendary lyricist Don Black), the musical explores the human experience of hitting rock bottom from misuse of one vice or another, and the struggle to get back up again. Having all individually lived the experience for real and forming lifelong friendships over it, the three writers decided to channel their collective journeys into their craft and bring it to the stage.
Global superstar Kid Rock (Jonny Labey) has the world at his feet and lives on a diet of adulation and excess. One night, an unfortunately-timed encounter with the paparazzi has him appearing in court on drug charges, and he’s faced with the decision of jail time or a 60-day stint in rehab at the Glade Addiction Treatment Centre. Opting for the latter, he is firmly resistant to the centre’s methods and mocks the other patients, insisting he’s nothing like them.
Meanwhile, sleazy tabloid hack Malcolm Stone (Keith Allen) sees an opportunity to get himself some prime front page glory, and arranges for a spy to go undercover at the facility and sneak him some inside footage. As Kid Rock gets to know the other patients and explore his true feelings behind the superstar facade, he begins to wonder if he’d be happier as his true Neil Wiggins self, but Stone has a darker plan which may ruin everything.
It’s great to see new British musicals being written, rather than the landscape relying heavily on US imports all the time. While not perfect, Rehab: The Musical does have a great deal going for it – Black and Young have some catchy compositions here, a mix of upbeat “comedy” songs and more meaningful ballads, helping to underscore character intentions while being hummable on the train home (especially the final uplifting number, ‘Just For Today’). There are a couple of musical missteps where the intended humour doesn’t quite land and some clunky lyrics jar to the ear, but overall it’s a solid score which mostly delivers.
Davis’ book is peppered with a decent share of funny lines and gives the leading characters enough to flesh them out. Sometimes the handling of the issues feels a little heavy-handed, and the characters allowed to be seen more as victims than as truly responsible for their life choices, but the audience really do come to care for these characters. Act II feels a lot more assured than Act I, and ultimately the journey is an engaging one, particularly when the show begins to find real heart in the journeys of Nick, Lucy (Gloria Onitiri) and Phil (Phil Sealey). The show does contain frequent strong language, though it largely suits the piece, and while the title should be enough of a clue, the show definitely isn’t suitable for younger audiences.
Labey is brilliantly arrogant as superstar Kid Rock, nailing the entitled privilege and cocky swagger that come from years of global adoration, before softening throughout his rehab stint to explore the insecurities and loneliness beneath. He excels throughout, making Neil Wiggins an ultimately likeable bloke behind the mask of Kid Rock and making the audience care about his redemption and future.
Allen gives good levels of sleaze as Malcolm, opting for Rex Harrison-style speak-singing, but the seedy characterisation makes up for it. Onitiri makes for a gritty but soulful Lucy, bringing the house down with ‘Museum of Loss’, and Sealey melts and breaks hearts in equal measure with his wonderful portrayal of compulsive over-eater Phil(ippa), being both funny and poignant in nearly every scene he’s in.
Jodie Steele initially feels underused as Malcolm’s “right-hand-woman” Beth, and her army of Heathers fans may initially feel short-changed at her lack of stage time, but this is rectified later on during ‘Die At 27 and You’ll Live Forever’ when Steele’s killer vocals come out to play, and she does a great job.
Like anyone dealing with the issues that it raises, Rehab: The Musical has its flaws, but its strength of character carries it through. Carried by a strong cast and likeable score, it’s a show about getting back up after every misstep, of which the show takes several, but eventually it finds its path.
Rob Bartley
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