Groundhog Day is on again
If this musical version of Groundhog Day is a fraction as good as the film then it will be fantastic, and with Tim Minchin on music and lyrics you are already halfway there, writes Michael Holland.
I was always amused at the name of the place where the townsfolk forecast their weather by what a groundhog does because Gobbler’s Knob sounds hilarious, but I was more amazed when I found out that this was a real place with this real tradition!
TV Weatherman Phil Connors wasn’t so keen and hates this annual trip to Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney – small town USA – where all his scientific research into what weather can be expected is disregarded for a hairy rodent who pokes his head out of his hole and either runs back in or stays. He has no time for the people there and lets them know it.
When the Punxsutawney folk said they fear a blizzard, Phil Connors laughs in their faces because his own report told everyone where that blizzard would be and it was not in their town.
Connors then goes on to upset just about everyone he meets, plus his cameraman and producer, Rita. Then, of course, the blizzard does hit town and the TV crew is stranded there.
The next morning his alarm goes off, the radio comes on and tells him it is Groundhog Day. He mocks their stupidity for playing yesterday’s tape and leaves his boarding house to find that everything is occurring exactly as it did the day before. Then the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next, and you get where this is going. Connors is stuck in a time loop and after a while it is driving him crazy. He seeks medical help and over-medicates and resorts to killing himself in several nasty ways because he knows that he will always wake up in his room with the radio telling him it is Groundhog Day.
After a while realises that if he is having to live and relive the same day every day, he can use it in his favour to seduce women by gradually finding out their likes and dislikes and every Groundhog Day he will woo them again with all their favourite things until he gets them into bed. He even robs the bank and pays for sex workers to come and party with him; he drink-drives as he does not fear arrest because he knows where he will wake up and what day it will be. And so it goes on, but very cleverly so,
Andy Karl is stupendous as Phil Connors. He plays him as a sleaze bag rather than the laconic character Bill Murray portrayed in the film version, but all his wiles cannot get Rita to have sex with him because he can’t hide his Jack-the-Lad ways, despite all the French poetry he quotes to court her.
Eventually, he has to change his life completely around and be nice to everyone to get anywhere.
This is a hi-energy show where there seems to be a constant beat of music and movement. There are great visuals, excellent lighting effects and some exceptionally good illusions that foxed everyone, but above all, for me, it was Tim Minchin’s songs that raised this show up. You know Minchin will take no prisoners and give no quarter to get a message across, which makes this for grown-ups and not kiddies.
I could see the lady next to me – who had been coming to the Old Vic regularly since the 60s when tickets were 1s 6d – flinch when Connors offered Rita ‘soixante-neuf ce soir’ just before she slapped him.
I could watch this show again and again.
The Old Vic, The Cut, London, SE1 8NB until 19th August. Times: Mon-Sat 7.30pm; Wed & Sat matinees 2.30pm. Admission: £13 – £90.
Booking: www.oldvictheatre.com
