Holly Williams

What’s that sound? Is it a new musical opening – or is it the bottom of the barrel being scraped? This is the latest in a never-ending line of movies getting the nostalgic musical treatment; just this week you could also have watched 50 First Dates the Musical, based on another 2004 movie, while 13 Going on 30 shares its DNA with other recent adaptations, such as The Devil Wears Prada (fashion mags!) and Mean Girls (mean girls!). Made by Americans with a lot of Disney credits to their name, this is a slickly efficient production with a giant, well-drilled, super-upbeat cast. Andy Fickman’s production is utterly inoffensive – but it’s also hard to escape the feeling that this is really just intellectual property slop: formulaic and familiar.