Cry Baby

My final Broadway show was 'Cry Baby', based on the John Waters film that starred a young Johnny Depp. It's still in preview so may well change before opening properly, and it probably needs to.

It opened brash and colourful, a late '50s set with an anti-polio party in the park with all the squares and good folks of town doing their bit, only to be interrupted by the ne'er-do-wells in leather and big quiffs. It's got all the touches you'd expect for something based on the work of the Pope of Bad Taste.

The problem I had with it from the start was the music, the bog-standard '50s rock'n'roll pastiche that I'm not keen on at all. Some of the lyrics were quite clever in a knowing sort of way but I never quite got into it. It didn't have the immediacy of 'Hairspray', the show it will always be compared to, but there's no reason why it shouldn't once it finds its feet.