Cruel Intentions: The ’90s Musical review – Exercise in nostalgia ends up feeling like a depressing throwback

This stage version nails the original’s acid punchlines but not the tone, blunting its dark edge with a score of the decade’s bubbliest songs

Rhianne-Louise McCaulsky (centre) in ‘Cruel Intentions: The ’90s Musical’ (Pamela Raith Photography)

The 20th century ended with a glorious crop of teen movies that crept under the skin of a whole generation. Still, strip away the nostalgia and these chronicles of high school life can look cynical, offensive, sex-obsessed and just plain mean. None more so than Cruel Intentions, the story of a creepily enmeshed stepbrother and sister who shag and manipulate their way through high school in their quest to come out on top.

Subtitled “The ’90s Musical”, this stage version nails the original’s acid punchlines but not the tone, blunting its dark edge with a score of the decade’s bubbliest songs.

It’s an adaptation that first popped up in America a decade ago, with the movie’s original writer Roger Kumble co-authoring a jukebox version of his hit take on the 1782 French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Now, director Jonathan O’Boyle – who’s presided over a slew of nimble stagings of off-West End musicals – has taken it in hand, with a killer cast mostly making up for a flimsy production budget.