I missed the London opening of Groundhog Day in August due to a little distraction called the Edinburgh Fringe Festival so I wanted to play catch-up and the earliest ticket available for this show was for a matinee. I usually associate matinees with grannies on discount tickets huddled in the stalls to keep the domestic heating bills down. This was a full house and a standing ovation.
It doesn’t really matter if you’ve not seen the Bill Murray movie, the plot is fairly accessible. Jaded weatherman Phil Connors is packed off to the small town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to do the annual report on Groundhog Day - the upcoming season is predicted - or not - by the behaviour of the local groundhog.
Connors hates his job, hates his life and isn’t that keen on small-town climate-forecasting rodents. So when it turns out that he is destined to repeat the same day over and over again he is in a kind of hellish loop. Well, not at first, he suddenly realises that he can use this temporal freak to his advantage - knowing what women say and think so that he can charm the pants off them.
The trouble is that the loop of never-ending fun starts to get him down. He discovers there’s a monotony to feeling like an all-powerful deity, but then he comes through it, uses his power for good, becomes a better human being and finds love.
While the stage version lacks the hangdog cynicism of Murray and Andie MacDowell as Connors' initially reluctant love interest, it has a lot going for it. Andy Karl is smooth, charming and funny in the lead role and Carlyss Peer has plenty of appeal as producer Rita.
As for the move from screen to stage the music and lyrics is by Tim Minchin and it is directed by Matthew Warchus, who were both behind Matilda The Musical. The book is by Danny Rubin, who also co-scripted the film with the late Harold Ramis so it retains the same spirit of feelgood fun spliced with sadder scenes.
There are plenty of memorable moments, such as some inventive dance set-pieces and a great car chase featuring tiny cars. Elsewhere a giant, nightmarish woodchuck keeps walking on and hitting Connors on the head as the days repeat itself. There is also a brilliant coup de theatre during one of a number of suicide-related jokes, which I won’t spoil.
The music is less striking than Minchin’s music for Matilda. I can still hear the tune of When I Grow Up from that show in my head after over a year but can’t recall any of the melodies from yesterday afternoon. They were all very enjoyable at the time though. One scene featuring Connors having various alternative medical treatments is a lot of fun - I don’t recall if this was in the original movie, it feels like it was added because of Minchin’s own views on medicine (well-documented in his beat poem Storm).
Minchin is a beautifully idiosyncratic lyricist though, with a penchant for lines that don’t quite rhyme perfectly yet sound great - early on he combines “pountless erection” with “phone reception”. It is worth seeing Groundhog Day for Minchin’s words alone. I’m not sure if I’d want to see it every day but I suspect enough people will to make this a long-running West End hit when it surely transfers at some point.
Old Vic Until Sept 17. Tickets here. It then goes to Broadway in 2017 and is expected return to London after that. Dates to be confirmed.
Picture by Manuel Harlan.
