You wait ages for a decent new musical and then three turn up at once. With admirable foresight, the Stephen Joseph Theatre has commissioned a trio of young writing teams to produce a season of single-act "micro-musicals" on themes ranging from washed-up whales to online sales, via hillbilly spitting contests in Hicksville.
Based on a true story that occurred on a remote Hebridean island, The Jonah Boy, by Jane Buckler and Richard Taylor, features a lonely teenager with a passion for saving whales. Unfortunately, the rare fin whale he wants to preserve has been dead for some time, though the smell is nothing compared with the stink that blows up over the creature's bones, which the mainland authorities want to requisition for a national museum.
Taylor gives the tale a darkly amorphous, through-composed treatment with some stirring ensembles for the embattled community. Jon-Paul Hevey is outstanding as the boy whose life is mysteriously transfigured by his strange brush with nature.
Laurie Sansom and Loz Kaye's A Beginner's Guide to Cybershopping is exactly what it says on the poster. It features a frenetic, mock-gospel score and a delightfully ditzy performance from Lesley Nicol as an internet novice whose computer springs to life and inducts her into the world of online auctioning. Imagine hitting F1 for help and having a well-drilled ensemble whisk you through the process in a series of deftly executed musical numbers.
But the pick of the bunch has to be Toby Davies and Grant Olding's hilariously hokey western spoof, Spittin' Distance, in which the world's leading spittle-flingers converge on the tiny town of Sans Serif for the annual cherry-pit spitting contest.
Sansom's propulsive production makes this a truly salivating prospect, as the founding fathers of Sans Serif shuffle on holding paper cherry trees that transform into cheerleaders' tassels for a proud, municipal hymn in praise of their town. Catch all three if you can, but if you must cherry pick, pick the cherry-pit spit skit - it hits the bull's-eye every time.
· Until March 12. Box office: 01723 370541.
