Fun at The Beach Romp-Bomp-A-Lomp is billed as a cross between Grease and Squid Games and as a big fan of both I was looking forward to what I hoped would be a goofy, evening full of parody. The show, written by Martin Landry with music and lyrics by Brandon Lambert, is a set on the beach where our 6 principle cast members have assembled for the ‘Beach Romp-Bomp-A-Lomp’ and to be named King or Queen of the beach. However the competition quickly takes a sadistic turn and the rounds are dangerous and kill off competitors as they go until just one person is left alive to make the final decision.

The description of the show is one that peaked my interest and throughout the early stages of the show I was drawn in with the unusual ideas but as the show continued the novelty began to wear off and the jokes fell flat. The jokes that were amusing at first became repetitive as they were repeated including one character repeating ‘What’ as he struggled to get his words out for a good few minutes longer than was funny as the audience shuffled awkwardly in their seats. Putting aside the humour, Squid games as a concept works as it created some peril but as all but one of our principle characters survived until the penultimate number it felt like very little was a stake. It was also unclear as to why the characters even wanted to be crowned King or Queen of the beach, other than it meaning that they wouldn’t be ‘a bum’ and the competitions they were given to do also built up no tension or even humour.

The show focused on 2 groups of friends, 3 girls named Mary Joe (Ellie Clayton), Chickie (Katie Oxmas) and Chastity (Janice Landry) and 3 boys named Joe (Tom Babbage), Dickie (Damien James), and Dude (Jack Whittle). The groups of friends very much gave Pink Ladies and T-Birds vibes with Chastity and Dude being our Sandy and Danny of the show. Chickie and Dickie were a couple who incessantly and unexplainably made bird noises throughout the show and didn’t seem to have much more to them other than this. Mary Joe and Joe initially started as the Patty and Eugenie of the show, geeky and clumsy individuals who struggled to speak to each other but soon ended up married and having an affair! Whilst it was clearly Chastity and Dude that are supposed to be the hero and heroine of the piece it was actually Mary Joe and Joe that I enjoyed watching the most as their storylines were the most outrageous. It helped that Clayton was wonderfully funny whenever she was on stage and her number ‘The Limbo Song’ which saw a very different side to Mary Joe was the highlight of my night.

The music within the show was designed to be a parody of jukebox musicals and Brandon Lambert took well know songs from the 50’s and 60’s but amended the lyrics so they were relevant to the show. For example ‘Mature Women Don’t Whine’ was based on ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry,’ and ‘The Ocean Motion’ was based on ‘The Locomotion.’ Once again this was a fun concept at the start of the show, working out which song was being parodied but as very few of the songs helped drive the plot forward or build a character they became tiresome very quickly and often felt like we didn’t need the full song as we quickly got the point.

The set itself was a fun concept for the show with the name of the competition constantly in lights above the casts head and the 2D stand dune cut outs worked well. There appeared to be some inconsistencies with the props used, we have 2D cut out popsicles and a 2D beach ball but at other moments in the show they reverted to a more traditional and realistic look for props.

Whilst not every show needs to change your life it does need to light a spark within you, that can be caused by something as simple as laughing out loud for the duration of a show or marvelling at the cleverness of the pastiches within the show, sadly Fun At The Beach Romp-Bomp-A-Lomp fails to ignite any sort of spark or even a smouldering of the flames despite an intriguing concept.

Fun At The Beach Romp-Bomp-A-Lomp is on at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) until 22nd June. You can find out more and book tickets here.

If you like this review of Fun A The Beach Romp-Bomp-A-Lomp you might also like my review of Choir of Man, Operation Mincemeat and Six.