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It’s early days, as the boys grow in confidence and the production starts to gel more professionally this will be a great show with lots of laughs and uplifting, inspiring performances to it.
The cast are wonderfully talented and the concept by Jason Robert Brown is highly laudable, however with teenage performers cast ostensibly as twelve year olds, the musical fails to deliver the standard expected of the West End. It’s a horrible conundrum; can you criticise teenagers for being cast in such a high-profile show? Some of the problems also lie with content and aspects of this particular production neither of which helps their young charges consistently look their best over a non-stop 90-minute period.
As one might expect, it’s a coming-of-age tale as protagonist Evan struggles with the prospect of turning... you guessed it. Brown does well to create an interesting enough narrative – Evan makes friends with Patrice, an unpopular girl, at his new school but as he strives to fit in with the cool kids he finds it increasingly difficult to juggle the two. Add in Patrice’s terminally ill best friend Archie and you’ve got a group of misfits primed to sing about their strife.
Lead males Milo Panni (Evan), Ethan Quinn (Archie) and Lewis Ledlie (school jock Brett) can’t compete with the lead girls vocally, perhaps a result of casting pubescent boys – although the thought that stretching the point that this is yet another travail of boyhood changes is just not practical. Special mention to Alex Thomas as Malcolm though as the stand-out male vocal, albeit in an orbital role. This is particularly the case when compared to Madeline Banbury (Patrice) and Isabella Pappas (Lucy) who have stunning, powerful voices at such a tender age. Pappas ironically seems to be aged upwards in comparison to how she looks in rehearsal pictures and is therefore even more impressive as the ‘more knowledgable’, sassier, popular girl who has an air of Zeta-Jones about her. Give her 20 years to reach the right age to see her as Velma Kelly when Chicago is back in town. Ethan Quinn and Lewis Ledlie have the best lines and the comic talent to back it up. Archie is on crutches and milks his terminal illness brilliantly. Quinn barely looks ten but has more than enough self-assurance to compensate. He’s another one to look out for. Disability is an awkward theme for humour though as his ‘fatal disease’ is about a third of the show with another third being Jewish jokes and the rest being a bundle of teenage angst to stitch it together.
It’s early days, as the boys grow in confidence and the production starts to gel more professionally this will be a great show with lots of laughs and uplifting, inspiring performances to it. It is very endearing so let’s assume it’s just growing pains at this point. 13 could easily blossom into a four-star show.
One thing to note is that because this is a company of children there are actually 47 performers in the mix to comprise each show. Therefore clearly the quality and variety will be changeable each night which is an exciting prospect. For your information here is the cast list for this performance on August 16th:
Evan - Milo Panni
Archie - Ethan Quinn
Brett - Lewis Ledlie
Malcolm - Alex Thomas
Eddie - Daniel Osei
Richie - Akmed Khemolie
Simon - George Littell
Patrice - Madeline Banbury
Lucy - Isabella Pappas
Kendra - Chloe Endean
Cassie - Ellie Sayer
Charlotte - Effie Ogino
