Rocket Science

Edinburgh might seem an odd location for the world premiere of a musical set very decisively in New Jersey, USA, but that's the Fringe for you.

It's still a work-in-progress at the moment, but musical theatre students from the RSAMD have been given the chance to introduce a show enticingly billed as “the anti-high school musical” to the world.

While it its current form has some undoubted weakness – in particular a baffling opening number – it in large part succeeds in its aim to provide an antidote to the saccharine reach-for-the-stars pep of its predecessors.

Our stammering hero Hal, endearingly played by Douglas Dunlop, attends a speech pathology class in which students are encouraged to dream “skill-level-appropriately”, his mother is a desperate housewife with exhibitionist tendencies, and the girl who harbours a secret crush on him has been saddled with the name Honoria. This is closer to My So-Called Life than Saved by the Bell, in other words.

One of the show's most endearing features is the way its focus shifts from the central characters to touch on the universal angst of those on the sidelines. When the most popular girl in school head-hunts Hal for the debate team, the spotlight glides over to his best (and only) buddy, left to brave the “cafetorium” alone at lunchtime.

Some of the ensemble scenes aren't quite as tight as they ought to be – an ambitious routine involving spelling with lettered cubes threw up a slight variation on “apostrophe” on review night – but Gemma Patchett's memorably quirky set with books that turn into bikes is a delight.

The odd witty line is thrown away, but when the show hits its stride, such as when debate champ Jenny (Alyson Lindsay) delivers arguments for and against abstinence education in about sixty seconds, Rocket Science shows real glimmers of greatness.

A version of this review first appeared in The Herald.

Remaining performances on August 24 at 7pm and August 27 at 3.15pm.