Harvey & Javine in Daddy Cool

Mark Shenton in his Theatre.com Review: “The autumn onslaught of big musicals in the West End has begun with Daddy Cool, the sole indigenously created and located new show in a sea of Broadway imports and revivals. Though there is definitely room for a musical that represents the multi-cultural melting pot of our great city, and I wanted to admire the sheer demented lunacy of its wilder excesses, a sense of numbed stupefaction settled in. It was Noel Coward who once famously observed the potency of cheap music; but he wasn’t factoring in just how expensively some cheap music can be inflated and dressed in loud musical arrangements and even louder production values. As given a terrifyingly tacky big budget treatment here, the back catalogue of German musical Svengali, Frank Farian, is given a contemporary makeover that is sometimes unavoidably infectious but even more frequently enervating... As a giant parrot, ominously perched in the theatre’s roof throughout the show, nonsensically descends and hovers over the front stalls for a carnival finale that invades the audience for the inevitable megamix, the seal is put on an evening of mess and excess.”

Benedict Nightingale of The London Times: “If I thought anything was certain, it was that I could never enjoy anything in a theatre that had first forced me to walk along a red carpet and through a load of performers dressed as birds, mainly chickens, before entering the auditorium. That I found yet another fowl, perhaps an overgrown parrot, dangling high above my head as I sat down only confirmed my resistance. Well, maybe I'm being a bit chicken myself, but last night I didn't feel like giving Daddy Cool the bird. True, the show is packed with young men strutting around like roosters while delivering testosterone-packed chords to their human hens. And, true, the story is pretty silly, an Anglo-Caribbean love-story vestigially indebted to Romeo and Juliet or, given the unstoppable music, West Side Story. Yet the casts' energy is as impressive as its choreographic discipline.”

Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph: “When first received the press release announcing that there was to be a new West End musical based on the hits of Boney M, my first reaction was that I must be on the receiving end of an elaborate practical joke. I mean Boney M, for heaven's sake. Has there ever been a naffer band than this pop-disco outfit of the 1970s manufactured by a mysterious German producer called Frank Farian? Well I suppose there have been Freddie and the Dreamers and the Bay City Rollers but offhand I can't think of many others with quite the squirm factor of Boney M. This was the pop group to which your drunken uncle disgraced himself with the chief bridesmaid at the wedding reception disco, the band to which I fell into the Thames during a drunken NUJ press trip in my salad days as a cub reporter… So I arrived at the Shaftesbury Theatre prepared to sneer, only to find that I'd stayed to cheer. Not three cheers certainly, indeed not quite two, but at least one and three-quarters—which is a pretty good strike rate for a new British musical. Say what you like about Boney M, no one can deny that their tunes are as adhesive as a lump of chewing gum on the sole of your shoe. Once heard, their biggest hits are never forgotten, however strenuously you wish you could get the things out of your head. So the sing-along factor is guaranteed. The show, with a book by Stephen Plaice and Amani Naphtali and given a raw, energetic production by Andy Goldberg, also boasts a soupcon of wit, a hint of a heart and lashings of energy… The Shaftesbury, for so long a graveyard of dreadful musicals, might just have a hit on its hands for once.”

Javine in Daddy Cool

Rhoda Koenig of The Independent: Mamma mia, whatever possessed the producers of Daddy Cool—or have I answered my own question? The latest attempt to cash in on a back catalogue, this musical uses the songs of Boney M as plot points or characterisations. But these impersonal numbers have neither raw passion nor easy confidence' the performers squall and the bass thumps relentlessly, as monotonous as Michelle Collins' attempts to act. One can't feel affection for anyone here, for the music isn't out to charm us or gain our sympathy, merely impress us with a series of song-and-dance numbers in which the girls splay, split and kick their legs like Swiss Army knives with all the blades going at once and the men clutch their privates. This hard-sell is hardly convincing, though, given Jon Morrell's tacky design and the lack of reality in this story of Notting Hill gangs (one black, one integrated) that don't swear or use drugs. When, shades of West Side Story, a boy from one gang falls for a girl from the other, they lock eyes and lips but not legs… Though it took two writers to concoct the book, their hearts do not seem to have been in it. Sunny is framed for attempted murder, but two minutes after we see him unhappy in prison, he strides into the Notting Hill Carnival in another white outfit—a witness has come forward to clear him, and everyone dances. At this point, when a 20ft bust with electric red eyes is unveiled and a giant parrot descends over the stalls, one could hear the voice of little Sunny's Caribbean grandmother: ‘How many times I tell you, don' be trowin' good money after de bad.’”

Nicholas de Jongh of The Evening Standard: “Daddy Cool, a thoroughly modern metropolitan musical, reliant upon hits from that best-selling band Boney M, left me little more than medium-warm. 'Hot' is the hopeful word used to describe a show with a West Indian flavour and which adventurously lifts the lid on simmering gang warfare in London. Yet the greatest raiser of temperatures last night was the inadequate air-cooling system, not the song and wild dance on stage, or the hurling of insults. Hot stuff this is not. Daddy Cool goes in for racy, raunchy music. Yet for all its delving into a London where guns are used to kill or terrorise or planted to incriminate, where mainly black-on-black gangs face each other like snarling dogs of war, straining at the leash, the musical's book turns soft, unrealistic and soppily optimistic. Peace, justice and a happy ending are glibly imposed out of the blue. It could hardly be less like murderous, complex real life. I admire Daddy Cool for seeking to appeal to a constituency of black youngsters who would rarely be found within West End theatres… Andy Goldberg's spectacular production, with its spectacular, sometimes vulgar sets and Sean Cheesman's choreography are notable for their dynamism. Their creative teamwork ensures Daddy Cool seems in its own fashion as much a fairy tale musical as, say, The Sound of Music.”

Sheridan Morley of The Daily Express: “Not so much a musical as a rock concert with a carnival finale so over the top as to make a Disneyland parade look like a masterpiece of good taste, Daddy Cool is a celebration of the hits of Boney M and their creator Frank Farian. If you can't quite remember—or never knew—what this band was all about, you clearly weren't a member of the ‘70s disco crowd… Somebody backstage must have realised that Boney M fans must by now be old enough and rich enough to afford tickets at West End prices in buildings with no threatening bouncers. But for extra security we get Michelle Collins from EastEnders as the nightclub owner Ma Baker and, as a gang leader, Harvey from So Solid. As a Golden Greats evening, Daddy Cool has hit its mark, with a firstnight audience cheering almost before its first notes could be heard. Sean Cheeseman's choreography is breathtakingly athletic, with Eurovision TV contestant Javine playing Asia Blue and Melanie la Barrie makes of the lesser-known ‘I Can't Stand the Rain’ a showstopper. So what am I complaining about? Well it's that musicals were once purpose-written rather than cobbled together from jukeboxes and to be about real people rather than hitparade stereotypes. You'll love or hate this show in exact relation to how much you love or hate Boney M.”

Quentin Letts of The Daily Mail: “Call me Fanny Cradock, here is a recipe for popular tastes. Take the music of a once popular pop group which has in recent years been considered fruity to the point of naff. Hire a cast of little-known actors who have energy but do not need to be paid much. Add one or two B-grade stars. Throw in a few new arrangements of the songs, together with a cheap storyline and a band equipped with electric keyboards and a hefty amplifier. Bingo! If cooked up with enough PR hype, you may have a retro-trendy West End dance hit for the under 30s. Daddy Cool is just such a confection… The music goes with a zing, the cast is charming and at the preview I saw on Tuesday the audience seemed moderately happy… Don't cancel anything important for Daddy Cool. It's pretty good nonsense. But if you're looking for blameless entertainment, you could do a lot worse.”