I skipped a day! But not Groundhog Day

In my defence, I was going to blog all about Suicide Squad when I got in from the midnight showing. But having been up for work from 2am and then spending the day in London with a friend, I wasn’t in any fit state to go to the cinema. Heading there in a couple of hours to catch it instead. I have a cinema subscription card, so for £17/month I can watch all the films I want. It’s pretty good for not feeling bad about last-minute cancellations!!

So instead, a brief review of Tim Minchin’s latest musical Groundhog Day.

We (husband and I) saw it last week, buoyed up by our love for Minchin’s witty comedic songs. And it was fine. There was a lot to like about it. I especially liked the cast, while my husband found it harder to shake off Bill Murray from the central role. I’m not going to summarise the story – see the film if you haven’t, it’s an absolute classic and much funnier than the musical could be. But it was done well enough. Most of the best jokes were direct lines from the film, though.

The songs were ok, not catchy enough to be singing them in the interval or after the show, but the lyrics were clear and made sense. Nothing stellar though, and I’d kind of been expecting stellar.

Additionally there were a few awkward almost anti-women moments, that felt really out of sorts for Minchin, and even a gay joke that didn’t sit too well (none of this was so bad as to veer into offensive – but knowing it’s been written by someone pretty ‘right-on’, it felt weird).

The staging though, that was pretty damn cool. Because they knew they’d have to repeat themselves a lot to get the Groundhog Day vibe, but they did it cleverly, so you never felt bored by that aspect. In one particular segment the main character had to end up back in bed regularly to show a day had passed, and it was done so skilfully that I grinned in delight, as if I was watching a magic show where I could actually believe in the magic.

We paid £22.50 per ticket and it was definitely worth that. Probably wouldn’t see it again, or buy the soundtrack. But since I know it’s a limited run, I thought I’d share what we thought of it.