Musical theatre / “Bubble Boy”, Queanbeyan Players. At Belconnen Community Theatre until February 23. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Queanbeyan Players have come up with another winner with their latest production Bubble Boy which opened in the Belconnen Community Theatre on Friday night.

Although based on a potentially serious premise about a boy born without immunities forced to live in a plastic bubble room by his over-protective mother, the musical is given a playful, cartoon-like production, by first-time Queanbeyan Players director Tijana Kovac.

The tuneful music and lyrics of Cinco Paul’s songs are unabashedly derivative, while the comic-book style storyline by Paul and Ken Daurio delights in its own silliness. 

Kovacs has embraced the possibilities offered by this approach by utilising colourful two-dimensional props and minimalist settings and successfully harnessing the exuberance of her large, predominantly youthful cast to achieve a disarmingly entertaining evening of feel-good theatre. 

As the bubble boy Jimmy Livingstone, whose education in isolation consists of reading his mother’s copies of Better Homes and Gardens, Rylan Howard is immediately likeable and delightfully goofy. 

His naiveness is cleverly contrasted by Kay Liddiard’s portrayal of Chloe, the girl-next-door, and the object of Jimmy’s affections, as a resourceful, confident young woman easily able to thwart the tactics of Jimmy’s controlling mother, portrayed by Aleisha Croxford. 

To describe the obstacles Jimmy and Chloe meet on their path to true love would risk spoiling the fun, but suffice to say their journey offers endless opportunities for delightfully outrageous cameos, among them, the doltish best mates Mark and Shawn, enthusiastically portrayed by Andrew Taylor and Sam Thomson, who miss out on the girl but discover each other instead, and Lorraine and Todd (Emilie Martin and April Telfer) the terrifyingly cheerful leaders of the Bright and Shiny Cult.

Valeria Arciniega Vidurrizaga is a stand-out as the biker, Slim, who offers Jimmy some useful advice, as is Roya Safaei as Pushpa, who hits a cow with her ice cream truck before stopping the show with her solo It’s an Elk. 

Throughout the large enthusiastic ensemble obviously delight in executing Sally Taylor’s quirky choreography while singing up a sometimes-ear-piercing storm to the enthusiastic accompaniment by Adam Blum’s funky six-piece on-stage band under the musical direction of Tara Davidson.

Despite the clunkiness of some of lighting and sound technicals, and some out-of-tune singing on opening night, Bubble Boy still succeeded in providing a remarkably entertaining evening of theatre in which director Kovac and her company’s embrace of the goofiness of the piece out-trumped any perceived lack of finesse. 

Bubble Boy strives to find the ‘truth in the goof’