Back to Back to the Future

With Back to the Future: The Musical currently on tour, I thought I’d share some thoughts I wrote on social media after seeing the show in London. What’s below differs from my usual blog posts in that it’s informal, originally aimed at my friends, and focuses on a particular production.

I’ll first present my fanboy credentials. BTTF is one of my favorite movies, and Alan Silvestri is one of my favorite film composers. The published score for the film’s music sits on my bookshelf; from time to time I lovingly page through it while listening to the soundtrack album. This makes me both one the best and worst possible audience members for this musical.

With that preamble out of the way, prime your flux capacitor and race your DeLorean to August, 2022!

Text of a Facebook post by Mike

Short review:

It’s fun, in the end. Easily the most impressive effects I’ve ever seen on stage. But the music is so bland that you may leave humming the scenery.

Slightly longer review:

The question with a show like this is whether it’s an artistic experience in its own right, or just a companion piece to the movie. I’m inclined to say the latter. If you love the film and have wondered what a musical version might be like, it’ll be fun to follow along and think, “Oh that’s how they translated that scene to the stage.” But I doubt that someone who hasn’t seen the movie would experience more than fleeting amusement.

Some moments do work well, particularly the bonding/coaching between Marty and George, the standoff between George and Biff, and the resolution of the romance subplot. A lot of this comes from actor Oliver Nicholas’ uncanny channeling of Crispin Glover. He gets everything right, down to the nervous drawl and gawky, swaying body language.

And some moments are really fun because of the stage effects. A life-sized DeLorean periodically rolls on stage, and a combination of physical motion and lavish CG make for some jaw-dropping cinematic episodes.

But this is a musical, and here’s where the show really drops the ball. The period-inspired music is “fine” but it’s bland, formulaic, and unmemorable. I literally can’t remember any song, other than the Huey Lewis hits that are needle-dropped in the appropriate spots. The lyrics range from dull to occasionally incomprehensible. (“My myopia is my utopia.” Uh, what?) The show needed a great score in order to not need roads, and it didn’t get one.

Actually, it did get pieces of a great score. Excerpts from Alan Silvestri’s music from the original film are used to make scenes more mysterious or exciting, and dang are those moments effective. Occasionally a sung vocal will echo Silvestri’s genre-defining melody. If only the original music for the show were this good.

Not-so-great Scott!

The other problem is the show’s re-imagination of Doc Brown, a portrayal which I call “drunk Robin Williams as game show host”. In this incarnation, Doc is a smug, giddy, fourth-wall breaking smartass, with no trace of the sincerity or vulnerability that Christopher Lloyd brought to the film role. He’s a little John Belushi and maybe (ironically) a little Rick of “…and Morty” fame, and trades in sincerity for cheap laughs at almost every opportunity.

“But should every stage actor in an adaptation imitate their film analogues?” That may be a good subject for debate, but in this case every actor except Roger Bart mirrored the film performances to the last detail, so clearly nobody had a problem with imitation generally. If a show is going to re-invent a character, it should make them better in some way: more emotionally resonant, or more suitable for the stage. They should at least channel Hippocrates, and not make the character worse.

Doc Brown in this show is way worse. His initial songs are irreverent and accompanied by fourth-wall-breaking background singers. (“Hey doc, who are these girls?” “I don’t know, but they show up whenever I sing!” This is what’s called an expensive joke: funny at the moment, but detrimental to a show’s integrity.)

A better timeline

The painful thing about this is that the writers set up a really good character arc for Doc Brown. Haunted by failure, 1950’s Doc desperately needs a success, and realizes that the DeLorean is his chance at validation as an inventor. This was a great idea, but Doc comes across as so crass and mocking in act one that by the time the show tries to make him sincere, it’s far too late.

Back to the Future: The Musical is fun, in the end, but falls way short of its potential. Scrap a lot of the lyrics, some of the music, and rethink Doc Brown so that he retains the essence of the movie’s character, and you could have something really special. This probably won’t happen. [A note from Future Mike: It didn’t.]