New musical Sing Street is an exhaustingly brainless extension of the hit film
4 / 10
Ultimately, Sing Street feels determinedly, exhaustingly brainless. It was originally aimed at Broadway, but its trajectory was cut short by the pandemic. Much like teenagers kept home from school, it doesn’t seem to have got much smarter in the interim. It feels like it’s pitched at secondary school kids, but you wouldn’t take teens to a show that chucks around homophobic slurs with gay abandon or is content to use child sexual abuse as no more than a little gritty retro flavour. Still, the performers give it their all, many of them making their professional debuts – and the songs are genuinely fun. Tune out the talking and you might just have a good time.
