It’s cold out there today! It’s cold out there everyday woodchuck chuckers! That’s a phrase you’ll be very familiar with if you’ve ever seen the movie Groundhog Day. And if you can’t tell yet, I can say I’m a massive fan of the movie.
I was so excited to finally see this on stage and the show didn’t disappoint. Based on the Bill Murray movie about a man stuck in a time loop, Groundhog Day on stage is an excellent adaptation of the film.
The plot, which I’m sure most will already know is about Phil Conners, a weather man tasked with covering Groundhog Day in the small town of Punxsutawney. Groundhog Day, before the release of the movie was a relatively unknown niche holiday where a literal groundhog, also called Phil was said to predict the weather. If Phil’s handlers say the groundhog has seen a shadow it means there will be six more weeks of winter.
Weather man Phil then finds that due to a blizzard he is unable to leave the town and wakes up to find that time is repeating and every single day is a repeat of Groundhog Day.
It’s literally the reason people reference Groundhog Day to mean they are stuck in monotonous life or that every day feels the same.
The movie is a hilarious comedy and the stage version is a mostly spot on recreation with songs thrown in. There are some changes here or there (I’ll cover them in detail in another article) and most of these are so things work better on stage, or flesh out a couple of the more minor roles.
With music and lyrics from Tim Minchin who musical theatre fans will know for doing the same duties on Matilda, the show has a great soundtrack. There’s a mix of bouncy sounds and ones that hit the emotions as Tim Minchin is great at doing. With clever lyrics and poignant moments the songs are just one of brilliant things about this adaptation.
There’s a lot of clever staging in the show. This includes using miniature car and location props for Phil’s car chase with the cops, and some great moments where characters seemingly teleport from one place to another like a movie scene cutting from one angle to another.
Conclusion
The show was instantly one of the most enjoyable I’ve seen on stage, and is one of the best stage to movie adaptations I’ve ever seen. They know exactly where to mix things up or put in dm service (a cheeky nod to Ghostbusters for a Bill Murray reference as one example). With no pun intended, Groundhog Day is definitely a show I’d be happy to watch day after day.
You can get loads more Theatre articles in the Theatre section of the site, and don’t forget to check out the Geek Battle comedy panel show on the Extreme Improv XStreamed YouTube Channel and on the dedicated Geek Battle YouTube Channel
