Their intentions are less than honourable

REVIEW: Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical – Malvern Theatres (Tuesday, April 29 to Saturday, May 3).

Showtime! stars rating: *  *  *  *  *

PACKED with the pop and rock hits of the period, this may be an unrepentant nostalgia fest, but the uninitiated can certainly rest assured that this is no Grease for the 1990s.

Based on the 1999 film of the same name, under Denise Crowley’s taut musical direction, this production goes several steps further, while maintaining a rock ‘n’ roll raunchiness that never lets up for a single moment.

All of this – plus a lingering sense of sexual ambiguity - would have been a tad shocking at the time. But nearly 30 years on, it scarcely raises an eyebrow, as one might expect.

Nevertheless, the central plot is rather wafer thin, with not a back story to be seen. Which can be forgiven, for the boundless energy of the actors and the vibrancy of the music powers the whole thing along at a cracking pace, holding the audience’s attention from start to finish.

So, first to the set list. If this was indeed the era of your youth, then what a treat lies in store, a cornucopia of sound for eager ears that well deserves a second outing.

One after the other they come at you, classic tunes by Britney Spears, Christina Aquilera, The Verve, R.E.M. and Natalie Imbruglia.

Talk about being spoiled for choice… quite suddenly you are back to a time when there is no social media, a limited internet, and if you were really down with the kids, then you owned a Nokia mobile phone that fitted neatly into the top pocket of your power shouldered suit.

Now to the plot. There can be little doubt that Nic Myers as the scheming Kathryn Merteuil is the glue that holds the whole thing together, as she strides the stage in a blur of lightning-fast costume changes, while sporting a rock voice that arguably hollers Glasto loud and clear.

Lurching from acid queen to sugar-tongued temptress, she struts and pouts her fiendish schemes with fellow plotter, her stepbrother Sebastian Valmont, played with crème brulee smoothness by Will Callan, who veers from suited and booted bank manager look to Chippendale before you can say ‘Cool Britannia’.

The dastardly plan is for Sebastian to seduce teacher’s daughter Annette Hargrove (Abbie Budden), a girl so well-scrubbed and squeaky clean that she could probably kill 99 percent of all household germs.

At this point there seem to be echoes of The Rocky Horror Show coming into play, the idea of innocence being overwhelmed by the rock ‘n’ roll bad boy. It won’t end well, will it?

Quite soon, all these sexual shenanigans start to wreak havoc at this exclusive Manhattan High School. It’s a blazered and gymslipped setting that only becomes apparent well into the story, when the cast appears decked out in their uniforms in an ensemble routine that reeks of redemption.

Cruel Intentions is set in a time – not all that long ago - before the tyrannical and schizoid present-day puritanism had paradoxically climbed into bed with unfettered vulgarity, an era when the dividing lines between what is permissible and what isn’t were clearly marked.

But no matter. This was a night of good old retro-rock entertainment… and we like it, oh yes, we do.