CLUELESS is a new musical comedy based on the Paramount Pictures classic film. The modern spin on Jane Austen’s Emma gets another timeless makeover from the original film’s writer-director alongside a majorly acclaimed creative team.
Featuring a book by the iconic voice of a generation Amy Heckerling (writer-director of Clueless, director of Fast Times at Ridgemont High), an original score by the multi-platinum singer-songwriter KT Tunstall (writer and performer of such celebrated hits as “Suddenly I See” and “Black Horse and The Cherry Tree”), and lyrics by Grammy® winner and three-time Tony® nominee Glenn Slater (Sister Act The Musical, Tangled), CLUELESS is directed by the acclaimed Rachel Kavanaugh (Half a Sixpence).
Cher Horowitz is the most popular student at Beverly Hills High, renowned for her unique talent at finding love for others. She's about to embark on her biggest project yet – making over her awkward new friend, Tai, and setting her up with the most handsome boy in school. But what happens to Cher when, for the first time, everything is not perfect? This fresh musical comedy is fun, fashionable, and, like, so way cool.
The whole show hangs on Emma Flynn’s gloriously upbeat portrayal of Cher. This is a musical about kids striving to be grown-ups in a playground for the rich; Cher is a genuinely difficult role to pitch, but Flynn, in her West End debut, captures Cher’s naivety perfectly. She injects character into Tunstall and Slater’s catchy original soundtrack and has a wonderful talent for physical comedy, which comes to the fore as she tries to make a move on Isaac J Lewis’ impossibly suave Christian.
The slightly random deployment of Tunstall does, however, feel emblematic of a frustrating vagueness at the heart of the Rachel Kavanaugh-directed Anglo-American production. It never feels as Californian as the film, and doesn’t quite know whether to play up its ‘90s setting or shrug it off. Tunstall’s tunes broadly go for ‘a bit of everything’ rather than committing to a specific vision. But at best it really works – the grunge pop of Human Barbies and the faux boyband jam Reasonable Doubts pastiche the styles of the decade nicely.
| 2025 | West End |
West End |
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