Carrie the Musical, Southwark Playhouse, London - review

It seems fitting that a show all about hidden depths - timid teenager Carrie turns out not only to be a beauty but to have dangerous telekinetic powers - gets another shot. Its first incarnation in 1988 proved a legendary failure, closing after just five performances on Broadway at a loss of $7m. The new, sleeker version of the musical (based on Stephen King's horror novel) now plays London in a trimmed-down staging with a band of just seven.

Director Gary Lloyd and his young ensemble do a cracking job, going full-throttle on the melodrama while keeping the focus tight. They can't change the sheer nuttiness of this bonkers Grand-Guignol-High-School-Musical mash-up or the cheesiness of some of the lyrics but the standard is high, the tempo is fast and the singing is strong. If you're going to watch a deranged religious mother drag her daughter round the stage while singing at top volume, this is definitely the place to do it.

There's topicality to the show too: school bullying has become, if anything, even more insidious and damaging since the eruption of social media and Lloyd's staging reflects this, introducing phones, laptops and selfies (though they do sit slightly oddly with Michael Gore's 1980s pop-rock score). There's sense too in delivering it as a chamber piece, since claustrophobia plays a big role in the minds of Carrie's teenage peers, all desperate to belong, and in her mother's frantic attempts to control her. Lloyd's tight ensemble brings out the sheer nastiness that can lurk in high school changing rooms. But, really, subtle psychological insight is not the order of the day here: it's a show about intensity and this young cast deliver in buckets-full.

Evelyn Hoskins as Carrie impressively charts the path from vulnerability to insane rage, transforming first from cowering teenager to delicate young woman, as she blossoms briefly for the school prom, then to deranged killer when her more vicious classmates humiliate her. There is lovely support from Sarah McNicholas as her classmate Sue, smitten with conscience, and from Greg Miller-Burns as Sue's nice-guy boyfriend, Tommy. Meanwhile Kim Criswell is sensational as Carrie's mad mother Margaret, her hair-raising solos conveying the personal pain behind her crazed religious mindset. Tim McQuillen-Wright's set plays its part spectacularly as the story reaches its gory, supernatural climax. This schlock-horror show is still a weird night out - and still not a great musical - but it is delivered here in style.

To May 30, southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

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