Stranger Sings! – The Vaults

Georgia McElwee in Stranger Sings! at The Vaults, London. Picture: Giulia Paratelli

Stranger Sings! continues at The Vaults, London until 15 January 2023.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

A youthful and totally committed cast throw themselves headlong into a parody of the Netflix show Stranger Things, and the result is a non-stop, high-octane, big-haired nostalgia trip that is surely destined for greater things.

This new musical by Jonathan Hogue, who provided the book, music and lyrics, began life as a two-night concert at Feinstein’s/54 Below in Manhattan before upgrading to The Players Theatre Off-Broadway. There, it became an instant cult hit, winning seven Broadway World awards, including Best New Musical, and it’s still playing in town, having decamped to Playhouse 46 in Hell’s Kitchen.

With barely a moment to catch its breath, the show has hopped over to London for its European premiere. The bean bags in the front row of the Playhouse have been replaced by (very comfortable) sofas and armchairs in the front row of the 120-seat auditorium in The Vaults – that Upside Down-like labyrinth of disused railway arches under Waterloo station. And I can’t think of a better space for a shamelessly silly show set between the real world and a demon-haunted alternative universe.

If you’ve not seen the TV series – the first season, at least – then you’re not going to get many of the gags. The 90-odd-minute (very odd!) show is jam-packed with Easter eggs – they pop up so relentlessly, it’s like a frantic game of Whac-a-Mole. But each in-joke gets ever louder laughs from the very appreciative audience. By the end of the Saturday night I popped in, people were screaming with laughter – die-hard fans of the Netflix original, I later discovered.

Ellis Kerkhoven directs a cast of nine, but don’t try to count them, as with doublings and triplings, it’s more like a cast of 20. Luckily, there’s a seemingly endless supply of comically ill-fitting wigs to conjure up the magic of theatre.

The plot effectively pastiches season one, in which we meet a gang of three friends – Mike (Joseph Riley), Dustin (William Shackleton) and Lucas (Finton Flynn) – who go in search of their buddy Will (a puppet deployed with great skill by Holly Sumpton) after he’s swallowed up by some demonic force and taken to the Upside Down. This parallel universe is… actually, it doesn’t matter – I’ve not got the word count…

Sumpton also plays Will’s mother Joyce (the Winona Ryder character in the TV show). She communicates with her son via fairy lights and, despite sounding like she’s lost her marbles, finally persuades the local sheriff Hopper (Howard Jenkins, in fine voice) to join the hunt. Also trapped in this netherworld is Barb (a show-stopping Georgia McElwee), whose best friend Nancy (Anna Amelia) has the hots for heartthrob Steve (Jonty Peach) but also kinda for Will’s brother Jonathan (also Peach).

There’s also Eleven (also played by Amelia), the shaven-headed kid brought to the small screen by Millie Bobby Brown, who seems to have escaped from some kind of hospital and has supernatural powers. And of course the Demogorgon – the never-quite-explained mutant-beasty-thing that terrorises the community of Hawkins – played by a morph-suited Flynn (where does he find the time for the costume changes?!).

Writing all of this down does make it sound like a lot of nonsense but it does all hang together, I promise. Indeed, all credit to creator Hogue for condensing at least eight episodes of telly into a cohesive two-act show.

The cast does a faultless job of his material, and it’s difficult to pick out a highlight, although I will say that #JusticeForBarb deserves to start trending again after McElwee’s performance (particularly the hilarious Ethel-Merman-inspired ‘Barb’s Turn’!) Everyone delivers musically and comedically, and the nightmarish ‘Emmy’ montage, performed by Sumpton alongside Winona Rider’s cinematic co-stars – Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Heather Chandler and one of the March sisters, I think – is pure joy. A nod here to costume designer Ellie Farrow and choreographer Lucinda Lawrence.

Live music director Debbi Clarke is at the keys (both computer and piano) playing in real-time to Adam Gerber’s pre-recorded orchestrations, and the tunes, like Justin Williams’ very effective set, are highly influenced by the 1980s. As Williams has the art department litter the stage with 1980s board games, pogosticks, lava lamps and VHS cassettes, so Hogue packs his music with heavy synths, screaming whammy bars and Yamaha DX7s.

The songs all have that slightly braindead 80s vibe – it’s Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson and Madonna meeting on the set of Little Shop of Horrors or Heathers – and while the music is never going to turn the world upside down, it absolutely services the high campery of the action and gets the audience cheering along.

Stranger Things is already a love letter to the Spielberg and Hughes movies of the 80s, so Stranger Sings is parody heaped on pastiche piled on homage. As a child of the 80s, I sat there, in my comfy chair, totally in my element – I was there the first time around! But the Gen Zs around me were clearly loving it even more.

It’s funny, observant, clever and inventive, and so over the top that it really is almost upside down. I wondered if it was perhaps a little on the long side, but couldn’t think of where to trim those 10 minutes. Besides, I wouldn’t want to deprive the die-hards of a single moment of fun. And great value at less than £20 a ticket. Surely the cult hit of London’s festive season – don’t miss it!

Craig Glenday