Clueless the Musical – a cynical knockoff? As if!

Original writer Amy Heckerling returns to adapt her iconic Jane Austen remix for the stage

Totally buggin: Emma Flynn and Keelan McAuley as Cher and Josh in ‘Clueless the Musical’ (Pamela Raith)

Two main challenges face the makers of Clueless the musical, the latest in a long line of attempts to alchemise the vintage teen movie into box office gold. One is to make it a decent show in its own right, instead of a nostalgic retread with added jazz hands. And the second is to find something that rhymes with Clueless. Fortunately, the original film’s writer Amy Heckerling has collaborated with Noughties singer-songwriter KT Tunstall and big-league lyricist Glenn Slater to create something that squeaks through on both tests. It's fun, totally fabulous – and pairs “clueless” with “socially IQ-less”. As if!

At first, director Rachel Kavanaugh sticks to the original movie like chewing gum to the underside of a school desk. Besties Cher (Emma Flynn) and Dionne (Chyna-Rose Frederick) show up in slick recreations of the plaid outfits that spawned a thousand Halloween costumes. Then, they reel their way through the iconic debate scene where our blonde antihero glibly compares the Nineties Haitian refugee crisis to one of her Dad’s high society garden parties: “It does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty!” Tunstall’s effective if unimaginative songs spell out the themes: Cher's life is “Perfect” – until she decides to give socially awkward “New Girl” Tai (Romona Lewis-Malley) a makeover and discovers some uncomfortable truths about herself in the process. The tone here is heightened, wringing laughs from moments that felt more serious in the movie: as Cher, Flynn channels Kristin Chenoweth-era Galinda in Wicked with her whimsical flourishes and pratfalls, stripping all the pathos and vulnerability from the scene where she’s held up at gunpoint.

It’s only in the second act that things start to look up, as Kavanaugh and Heckerling gain the confidence to part ways a bit from the movie’s script, and to let the story’s heart show. As schlubby love interest Josh, Keelan McAuley brings an impressive pop-punk vocal fire to his standout number “Reasonable Doubts”, his hidden love for Cher vaulting out in a dangerous-looking dive roll off a table. Christian (Isaac J Lewis) – already an unusually sensitively written gay character for 1995 – gets a beefed up role, and an endearingly drawn friendship with Cher. And Flynn really grows into her role, beautifully capturing Cher’s gradual realisation that it’s what's between the shoulder pads that counts.

This production works wonders with its carefully chosen cast of newcomers who deliver performances that feel youthful but not exhaustingly peppy. And designers Mikoko Suzuki MacAdams (set) and Paloma Young (costume) go the extra mile to bring the aesthetic marvels of Nineties Beverly Hills to Trafalgar Theatre’s smallish stage, too, having fun with couches that flip out into cars and extravagant outfits that erupt in puffs of tulle.

Will Clueless be a success on the scale of hit teen movie-turned-musical Heathers? Perhaps not – it’s a bit light on the catchy songs and easy-to-imitate dance routines that can pull in younger fandoms. Still, it’s a welcome excuse to revisit a classic, sewn together just enough originality to make it feel like a stylish homage, not a cynical knock off.

At The Trafalgar Theatre until 27 September; more information here