Lovestuck at Stratford East review: 'a cheerfully brainless scatological musical'

Don’t call it a poo-sical, plead the creators of this cheerfully brainless musical about poo. It’s a new theatrical venture from the writer and director of hit podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno and draws on a similar pit of deep mortification - inspired by the viral 2017 news story about a woman who, on a first date, got trapped upside down in a window, trying to retrieve the unflushable turd she’d thrown out of it.

The show has a handful of catchy songs and some good gags and has also joined the ranks of real life showgirl-to-star narratives. A week before opening, lead actress Jessica Boshier got injured. Her ‘cover’ Ambra Caserotti has stepped up from the ensemble and plays the role with warmth, charm and a fine, uncomplicated voice. Cometh the hour, cometh the #poogirl.

OK it’s not quite Edward Bennett stepping in for David Tennant as Hamlet at a few hours’ notice, or Patsy Ferran learning the part of Blanche DuBois in a week. But only the subject matter makes it different. And there’s the problem.

Writer James Cooper and director Jamie Morton insist that this is a compassionate show about embracing messiness, finding connection and being yourself.

But ultimately it’s about a girl stuck in a window with her own excrement. The first half is buildup, the second is fallout. The characterisations of the leads and supporting roles are toilet-paper thin. Everything is built around the sh*t hitting the pane. Now, I like a scatological gag as much as the next man, but I wouldn’t build a 140-minute musical around it.

Anyway, we are, as Alison Steadman’s sardonic voiceover tells us, “in a faraway land called… Luton”. Caserotti’s Lucy is a nurse whose boundless compassion is matched only by her inability to get a date. Shane O’Riordan’s mega-awkward Peter is a lovely bloke who likes cosplaying as an elf with a phallic sword. Both have the kind of best friends you only find in sketchy romcoms: a shriekily adoring, gay, black doctor for her and an oafish, guffawing finance bro for him.

In its pastel-coloured campness and its depiction of two sweet characters too nerdy for romance, endlessly mocked by a chorus, the show shares DNA with the far more complex and ambitious Why Am I So Single?, from the creators of Six the Musical. But here everything is obvious, from Lucy’s mocking internal voice taking on the form of a schoolfriend who is now a “perfect” influencer, to Tom Rogers’ set, a series of windowframes.

The music is by pop singer-songwriter Bryn Christopher and composer-arranger Martin Batchelar, the lyrics by Christopher and Cooper. The best songs are the title track, which has a rippling, 1970s shimmer, Peter’s Underneath – where he dances ecstatically round his first, shabby flat with an estate agent – and the snarky Cat Lady.

Elsewhere there are isolated, zingy lyrics - “my life is in pieces/turned upside down/with my own faeces” – and funny lines but they are few and far between. Chi-San Howard’s choreography is basic, the acting ensemble capable but uninspiring. And, you know, this is a musical about a woman’s humiliation. And poo. Though honesty compels me to say that I was humming the closing number, Everyone’s Got Their Shit, on the long cycle ride home from Stratford.

To 12 Jul, stratfordeast.com