The High Life continues to soar as delightfully silly musical reaches the King's Theatre
On opening night at Glasgow’s King's Theatre, The High Life: The Musical arrived with the kind of affectionate hysteria that a cult classic deserved.
Thirty years after the original BBC sitcom first staggered into the public consciousness, Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson have brought Air Scotia back to the departure gates. The High Life is now older, louder, and still gloriously ridiculous. What might have been a brittle nostalgia exercise instead lands as a self-aware celebration of Scottish comedy, theatrical excess and unapologetic camp. In short, it’s a hoot.
From the first entrance of Sebastian Flight and Steve McCracken the theatre audience were onboard. Cumming and Masson have lost none of their chemistry. Their timing remains sharp, alternating between throwaway absurdity and perfectly calibrated double acts with the confidence of performers who have stood in front of a Glasgow audience ever since Victor and Barry burst onto the scene in the 1980s.
Directed by Andrew Panton and co-written with Glasgow pantomime maestro Johnny McKnight, the production leans unapologetically into theatrical anarchy. This is less a conventional book musical than a collision between sitcom revival, panto, sketch comedy and variety show.
Fourth-wall breaks arrive constantly. Audience participation is encouraged with knowing enthusiasm. Puns and throwaway barbs are delivered at a rapid pace. Then there are bursts of new songs, often featuring daftness delivered with conviction.
Siobhan Redmond’s magnificently volcanic Shona Spurtle remains a scene-stealer, while Patrick Ryecart’s Captain Hilary Duff drifts through the production with delirious eccentricity.
Around them, a younger supporting cast injects contemporary energy without disrupting the show’s nostalgic core. Rachael Kendall Brown, in particular, brings a sharp modern comic sensibility.
Musically, the score is more effective than expected. Masson’s songs gleefully ricochet between Broadway pastiche, Eurovision bombast and music-hall silliness. Not every number earns its running time, and the second act occasionally sags beneath the weight of its own exuberance, but when the production hits full velocity it becomes almost impossible to resist.
There is also something unexpectedly touching beneath the nonsense.
The High Life musical may not be subtle, tidy or even remotely restrained, but it knows exactly what it is. Like Air Scotia itself, it appears held together by chaos, nostalgia and blind optimism. Somehow it still manages to soar.
The High Life is at the King's Theatre, Glasgow until Saturday 23 May.