Shrek the Musical opens in West End

Stars of the new West End production of Shrek, including Amanda Holden, Richard Blackwood and Nigel Lindsay, give their verdict on the opening night at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane. 

In our house, Shrek has never been quite up there in the pantheon of great children’s films along with Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book and the peerless Toy Story movies.

Nevertheless the story of an ogre and his love for a beautiful princess who isn’t quite what she seems is undoubtedly blessed with a likeable mixture of wit and humanity. And at a time when it seems to be de rigueur for every new stage musical to be based on a movie, it is no surprise to find Shrek being given the tune-and-toe-show treatment.

It is, however, a surprise to find it in the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Shrek received a pretty lukewarm welcome in New York, where it only ran for a year, and Drury Lane is a mighty big house to fill for what is essentially a glorified kids’ show. But infantilism seems to be all the rage at the moment, with the Wizard of Oz in residence at the London Palladium.

And brash, noisy and full of fart jokes though it is, Shrek will undoubtedly appeal to adults as well as children. Indeed it strikes me as being more fun than the Wizard of Oz, in which the creepy mixture of cruelty, sentimentality and cod philosophising always leaves me feeling nauseous.

In contrast Shrek sets out to do no more than entertain, and in this it succeeds handsomely. It combines an attractive tongue-tied romance with a celebration of lovable losers and odd-bods and David Lindsay-Abaire’s book and lyrics have a welcome sense of mischief about them. At its best Jeanine Tesori’s score recalls the great soul music of the 1960s and ends with the bubblegum bliss of the Monkees’ I’m a Believer - curiously the same tune that Stoppard chose to celebrate romantic love in his own much brainier play, The Real Thing.