By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****1/2 RUNTIME: 155 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

WHEN?: Saturday 12 August, runs through 19 August 2023 RUNTIME: 155 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Pre-Covid we told Old Vic Artistic Director Matthew Warchus after Groundhog Day‘s initial run that it was ahead of its time when he revealed his plan for its return.

• Read on for reasons including how we think this show has the legs for a West End run after its old Vic bow

Seven years after that initial run and a free 1st preview/final dress rehearsal and Groundhog Day’s mental health themes are everywhere.

The last theatre we saw was Lucy Prebble’s anti-depressant clinical trial expose The Effect and the next musical we see is Next To Normal about a grieving mother’s breakdown.

One of the books we are reading is Lucy Spraggan’s Process which waives her right to anonymity and reflects on her rape 10 years ago while our album of the month is Cian Ducrot’s response to an abusive childhood, Victory.

It’s also our husband’s favourite musical and 1 he has now seen 4 times, once more than us, and on our 1st return to it after 7 years we are immediately aware of how much this show is loved by a devoted audience we expect which includes many seeing it on a repeat visit as we are.

For the uninitiated this musical by Tim Minchin (Matilda the Musical, Cambridge Theatre) won our 2016 monsta for Best New Musical in its original Old Vic bow and went onto win 2 Oliviers while being shortlisted for 7 Tonys.

It’s based on the 1993 film starring Bill Murray about an arrogant TV weatherman reporting on the annual Groundhog Day celebrations in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

But Groundhog Day the musical works better than say Mrs Doubtfire (also a new musical based on a 1993 US comedy film ) across the Thames at the Shaftesbury Theatre because it takes its source material as inspiration rather than carbon copy.

Minchin’s Matilda follow up is very much a midlife crisis masterpiece where our anti-hero gets to live out the same day multiple times as he initially indulges himself, then commits multiple suicides and, eventually, finds redemption in true It’s A Wonderful Life style.

We appreciate the lyrical tweak in favourite song If I Had My Time Again where Andy Karl’s weatherman Phil admits to sleeping with ‘some dudes’ when he was bored from ‘1 dude’ in the original and enjoy how less complicated the staging now is without the previous 2 revolving stages.

What remains are the breathtaking sleight of hand visual tricks where Karl’s anti-hero appears in stage locations you wouldn’t expect him to and we don’t mind admitting we had a slow cry through most of the 2nd half of the show because it is ultimately so moving as the earlier darkness of the piece finds light.

At a time when feminist film Barbie is proving so popular, 1 could criticise the timeliness of a story about male midlife crisis but what Minchin does so well is give depth to 1 of the most peripheral characters in song Playing Nancy – an attractive woman bemoaning her lot to be forever typecast in bimbo roles by men in power – making it actually 1 of the show’s strongest numbers.

We do think Groundhog Day has a life after this run probably on a regional tour and, if so, we’d love for a new lead to fill Karl’s shoes just because it might give the show new energy.

We see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s horrifically dated and dull Aspects Of Love immediately after this show at the Lyric Theatre and it’s easy to see why it’s closing early yet Groundhog Day may have the goodwill of repeat visitors to justify a West End run even before its regional tour.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Old Vic Theatre Tickets
• Have you seen a show at Old Vic Theatre or by Tim Minchin? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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