Kimberly Akimbo heads this way garlanded with Tony Awards from its Broadway run. The premise is an intriguing one: Kimberly Levaco, approaching her 16th birthday, has a rare genetic condition that means she ages rapidly.
Maria Friedman plays the lead and brings energy, fun, and heart to the role of someone who knows her next day might be her last. Her parents, expecting a new baby, neglect and resent her.
At the skate park she finds a connection with anagram-living geek Seth Weetis (a warm and witty performance from Gilli Jones). Complications arise when her criminal auntie Debra (Alice Fearn, revelling in the nasty and OTT character) arrives, offering imbalance and perhaps a sliver of hope.
Kimberly Akimbo, with music by Jeanine Tesori and book/lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire, is based on his 2001 play. In Michael Longhurst‘s production, the technical aspects are stunning, with a rotating set by Soutra Gilmour, spinning clocks, live video, and richly decorated interiors.
Blending amusing situations with a stark understanding of Kimberly’s plight – her dad comments on her appearance with make-up on “you look like Nana at her wake”; she dryly notes Seth can’t make her pregnant as she has already been through menopause – the musical can ultimately be filed under ‘feel-good’.
The Levaco parents do feel a little one-note, making me recall the caricatures in Matilda. Pattie (Niamh Perry) offers increasingly unhinged video recordings for the baby; Buddy (Peter Hannah, drawing on his Earl in the West End production of Waitress) knocks back the booze and embarrasses Kimberly with his alpha parent stance.
At school, four teens are in the throes of formative crushes on each other, complicated by faulty gaydar. They are the type you have met before in shows from Grease to Heathers, obsessed with little things that just don’t matter when you know your life is short.
With eye-popping colours and a band set at the extreme edges of the stage, Kimberly Akimbo doesn’t dig deeply into any of its themes: fraud, abuse, mortality and murder all get mentioned but jettisoned for another aside.
Two lessons stand tall. Debra suggests you “gotta go and steal some apples” when “life gives you lemons” and, more poignantly, “no one gets a second time around”.
The ending made me think a bit of Little Miss Sunshine‘s musical treatment in its upbeat nature, but it at least leaves the audience heading out to Swiss Cottage with a spring in their step.
If you are expecting a focused dramatic exploration of illness and neglect, Kimberly Akimbo isn’t it. What it offers is exaggeration, puns, and how to make the best of the time you are given.
I’m giving this 3.5*.
Kimberly Akimbo continues in Hampstead Theatre’s Main House until 7 Nov.
Photo credit: Marc Brenner