Written by Jake Brunger, with lyrics by Pippa Cleary, the show is based on the original book in the Adrian Mole series. A lot of us will remember growing up with 9 Adrian Mole books written by Sue Townsend and for many of us the night is like catching up with an old friend.
Playing Adrian, James Hameed does a great job of portraying a lot of topics that will be very familiar to those who have read the books. This includes his affections for a girl called Pandora (Sally Cheng) and conflicts with friends and family, including his father and mother (Played by Steve Simmonds and Sioned Saunders)
The night is a magical musical number and, as is often seen at The Queen’s Theatre, all of the actors do a fantastic job of both playing the characters and playing musical instruments. The score is clever and there are a huge variety of songs. You won’t find yourself humming the songs after the show but each one left me feeling that I should be falling to the floor in stitches of laughter, it really is one of the funniest musicals I have seen for a long time.
The show is slightly rough around the edges but this has certainly been done on purpose to reflect the diary of Adrian. There are some odd moments, for example the dream sequence does go on a bit too long but overall the night is definitely worth going to see and I loved it so much that I’m genuinely considering going to see it a second time