Between creating In the Heights and Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda co-wrote the music and lyrics for this 2011 US high-school show inspired by the popular teen film. Some of the numbers reveal the capacity for densely rhymed hip-hop that has become his admired trademark. Yet for all the production’s energy, there is something odd about members of the youth-oriented British Theatre Academy immersing themselves in the deeply American culture of cheerleading.
Jeff Whitty’s book makes it clear that cheerleading is much more than pompoms and ra-ra chants: it is a highly competitive sport with its own built-in status-seeking.
The plot focuses on the ambitious Campbell, who is captain of her high school team, and who, when deviously relocated to another establishment, vows revenge on the rival who has supplanted her.
The show argues there is more to life than winning and reveals the dubiously hermetic nature of its subject. We are told: “Being a cheerleader is like being a marine: you sign your life away.” What the musical doesn’t mention are the catastrophic injuries and the accusations of sexual molestation inseparable from cheerleading.
You simply have to sit back and enjoy the songs, which Miranda co-wrote with Tom Kitt (music) and Amanda Green (lyrics), and the exuberance of Ewan Jones’s production and choreography, which require the cast to leap, dance, cartwheel and form human pyramids.
Robyn McIntyre as Campbell, Chisara Agor as her newfound friend, and Kristine Kruse as a one-time mascot who enjoys a sexual awakening, lead the group with elan, but I can’t help feeling relief that in Hamilton, Miranda finally found a subject that matched his formidable talents.
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Bring It On is at Southwark Playhouse, London, until 1 September.
