Streets The Musical @ theSpace, Surgeons Hall

This tale about the woes of teenage life in a rough area of a Scottish city growing from bad to worse kicks off with a suitably menacing overture stacked with harmonies. The street scene looks good, but there’s some work to be done to clean it up yet.

Streets The Musical turns out to be a rather clichéd offering about the escalation from petty crime to gang life. Dressing this story in a very Scottish execution adds novelty, but the switch from Scottish vernacular during the action to clean American accents during musical numbers in not always welcome. There is hackneyed sermonising from the villain (“I’m giving him a head start, Rick”) and after the unsatisfactory Deus Ex Machina of the bad guy getting stabbed to death solving everyone else’s problems, insult is added to injury (if you’ll pardon the pun) when sympathetic characters are slain needlessly at a point where their death has no time to serve the plot.

There is some talent here, no doubt. Good voices and enjoyable dancing. Of the two couples, Lilly and Max (who own the subplot) have the more convincing chemistry. Despite a not-quite-funny, not-quite-heart-warmingly-tragic song about alcoholism and sex, Rosmary Stanford’s performance as Joni shines through the strongest. There is also a winning plot device where lead character, Robyn, is encouraged by her mother to sell on someone else’s drugs to start a new life. It’s brave to write a musical where such controversial means lead to productive ends.

The quality of the songs varies widely. While the cheesy ballad You Are My Weakness packs some insufferably cod lines (“someone has to tell him, someone has to love him”,) the hit tune The Night Can Go On,” which takes place at a house party, packs interesting choreographic devices into the bargain.

At present Streets The Musical seems more apt for the community stage than the Edinburgh Fringe, but perhaps not unsalvageable. Finn Anderson is not a poor writer, nor composer, and having cut his teeth on this first major work he could yet sharpen his tools on another couple shows only to go beyond expectations and win out at Fringe Festivals to come.