Double agents, mouse parodies and catchy choruses are on display in this imaginative and ambitious new musical from Five Days More.
From the start, The Spy Who Came In From The Park quickly establishes its satirical nature. Sat offstage but with only his legs kicking on his father’s lap, a North Korean dictator’s son has just one wish, and that is to go to Tokyo’s biggest theme park. The one with the mouse. No, not that one, the show quickly explains; they do not have the lawyers for that, but you get the point. What then follows, over the next hour, is an absurdly silly new musical which sees a sleeper agent hired to protect the leader’s son from malevolent forces, although the threat might be a little closer than they realise.
Hired to look after the son is the food vendor Pae Jun-Hyuk (Chenyu Miao). This is the chance Pae has been waiting for to serve his country, and he is quick to agree to Major Ri’s demands (Meng Lei). But things quickly go awry when Major Ri decides to make a power play, threatening to dispatch the child and the regime in one fell swoop.
It is a big idea, but one that the production team do manage to get into the hour. That said, though, the piece has to move rapidly, and some moments get a little undone by the speed. Nevertheless, Yichuan Chen’s book has great promise, especially in its satirical take.
Indeed, what is most impressive about this new musical is just how well it seems to understand the genre. Chen’s book is remarkably catchy, with choruses becoming earworms after the show, and the gentle mocking of the theme park mascots as overlords the workers idolise is a nicely ironic take in a musical about a dictator’s son.
Moreover, the love interest between Pae and Ryoko (Meiyang Wen) is typically sequenced into the show too. It feels a little forced, again hindered by the show’s relentless pace, but the sentiment is there and, in context, it largely works. The showdown between Pae and Ri is also neatly choreographed but, again, feels as if it comes just a little too quickly.
But what is abundantly clear is that this new musical understands what shows need to be a successful musical. It has all the right hallmarks, and the hand-drawn set design (Yuhe Zhang) of the theme park’s not Magic Kingdom Magic Kingdom is gorgeously put together.
If it just lets the moments breathe a little more, this will be as fun a day out as riding the rides itself.
