EDINBURGH 2011: BWW Reviews: FRESHER THE MUSICAL, C Venues, Aug 19 2011

Kevin Sherwin

After an award-winning debut run in 2010, Fresher the Musical returns to the Edinburgh Fringe, chest puffed and with a confident swagger, its flyer announcing a cast recording and the release of the amateur rights to perform it. And it has every right to be cocky - it's a highly entertaining romp through five students' early time living together at university and it's uniquely and refreshingly British, standing out in an unmistakably America-focused musical theatre landscape. The script, not without the occasional clunker of a line, is often very funny provided you're amused by BBC Three sitcoms (which I frequently am, in case that reads like a swipe).

Its real ace, though, is the terrific score by Mark Aspinall - the opening and closing numbers are as good as any you could hope to hear - and it doesn't do any harm that it's delivered by a hugely appealing and talented cast. That's not to say last year's cast was any worse (and in fact there are a couple of performers I'd swap out to form my preferred line-up) but overall, Fresher '11 is a slicker, more polished affair and seems on the road to something bigger.

It will be fascinating to see what Aspinall and the book-writer Sally Turode do next, not to mention its cast, although what irked me last year is niggling once more: would five randomly-assembled 18-year-olds in 2011 really all be familiar with - never mind spend their time quoting -  'Fawlty Towers'? A Rebecca Black allusion rings far truer but slightly iffy cultural referencing and nit-picking thereat aside, Fresher is, for the second year running, a gem of a show.