Identical review: young stars excel in a show full of ‘theatrical wonder’

Composer George Stiles and lyricist Anthony Drewe have had a huge hit with their stage version of Mary Poppins. Their latest family musical, Identical, is less firm on its feet but, thanks in part to the fine performances of its young stars, this tale of identical twins separated at birth has the makings of a “must-see phenomenon” even so, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. From a script by Stuart Paterson that “closely honours” its source – Erich Kästner’s 1949 novel Das doppelte Lottchen – it rises to a climax of genuine “theatrical wonder” in this production, produced by Kenny Wax and directed by former RSC supremo Trevor Nunn.

For Disney’s screen versions of Kästner’s book – 1961’s The Parent Trap and its 1998 remake – the action was relocated to the US and England. Here, it returns to its original Mitteleuropean setting. Having lived apart with divorced parents in Munich and Vienna, its ten-year-old heroines discover one another’s existence when they meet by chance at a summer camp in Bavaria. The set-up is a bit plodding, making for an overlong first half. But after they resolve to swap places so that each can meet the parent she never knew, things take off, said Nick Ahad in The Guardian. Nunn brings out “both the farce and the fragility” in this complex family situation, said Georgina Brown in the Daily Mail. The sliding sets and video work lend the action a “movie-like” fluidity. And the acting is great, with three sets of twins playing the girls in rotation (Kyla and Nicole Fox were superb on the first night).

Sadly, the magic never happened for me, said Clive Davis in The Times. I felt the girls were let down by “limp” dialogue and “surprisingly slack” direction, and the show’s visual brilliance only served to highlight the “cardboard quality” of the storytelling. It’s “gooey” and undeniably far-fetched, said Quentin Letts in The Sunday Times, but such is “the alchemy of the stage musical” that I found myself blubbing. You may not warm to its “commer­cially savvy sentimentality”, but if it extends after Nottingham and Salford it will, at least, help “cure the national drought”.

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Nottingham Playhouse (to 14 August) and The Lowry, Salford (19 August to 3 September); identicalmusical.co.uk