The SpongeBob Musical London Review

Disclaimer: We received tickets for this show in exchange for this post, as always, all thoughts and opinions are my own – read on for our The SpongeBob Musical London Review

We are lucky to live close to London and can travel in via train in around 40 minutes which means we tend to visit most school holidays to explore, see a show or just take in some of the street entertainment.

The Southbank is one of my favourite places to potter around, even if you don’t visit any of the attractions here such as The London Eye, The Aquarium, The London Dungeons or Shreks Adventure, there is still so much to see and do. You can either walk along or travel via boat and there are plenty of food vans along the way where you can grab a bite to eat, a cocktail or an ice cream and be entertained by the numerous entertainers while enjoying a beautiful view of the river at the same time. If you head further down you’ll find a lovely old-time carousel and a cute little theatre within the Southbank Centre.

Table of Contents

Currently showing at the Southbank Centre is The SpongeBob Musical which is running until the 27th August 2023. If you’re a SpongeBob fan then you will certainly recognise the characters as soon as they come onto the stage, of course, not in their cartoon form as you already know them but played perfectly by actors who bring to life their character’s personalities just as they are on your TV screens, and with the most whacky costumes which work so well to make them like the cartoon versions – with SpongeBob wearing a bright yellow shirt with bubbles all over, brown shorts, long knee high sports socks and bright yellow hair, you can almost see him as the sponge we all know and love. The actor playing SpongeBob has his personality down to a tee with an oversized grin for the whole show and bouncing around the stage full of energy he did a brilliant job.

Whackier costumes include Sheldon J. Plankton who first shows himself as a tiny version attached to the actor’s shoe, then for the rest of the show is larger than life played by RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’s Divina De Campo.

At the start of The SpongeBob Musical, the Bikini Bottom community is in danger. The giant volcano Mount Humongous is about to erupt and when it does, Bikini Bottom will be destroyed. So it is down to Spongebob and his lovable friends to save the day and stop the evil Planktons to save their town and protect the pineapple under the sea.

You’ll find yourselves giggling as you see parts of this musical you recognise from the TV show such as SpongeBob awakening from his sleep, getting upset about not being considered management material and of course his infamous panicked screams which go on forever – 10 minutes later, 1 hour later, 10 years later – all fans know what I mean here.

It wouldn’t be complete without Mr Krabs trying to cash in on the impending disaster and as it is a musical there are songs about money….well you wouldn’t expect anything else from this character, would you? His daughter Pearl plays a wonderful role in this show and the actress playing her part was certainly my favourite, and wow, what a voice she has!

The set design was incredible and so well done for this show, with lots of recycled materials used for not only the set design but for many of the costumes too. Mount Humongous featured lots of plastic bottles to make this statement piece and my favourite part of the show was a song/dance number with SpongeBob and glow-in-the-dark sponges.

I’ll not spoil the show and you’ll have to see for yourselves to see if SpongeBob, Sandy and Patrick can manage to save Bikini Bottom and save the day.

Harry absolutely loved this show and was mesmerised by it all. Myself and Emmy however did spend a lot of the time wondering just what we were watching, especially for the first half of the show. It felt more Panto style than a London show in my opinion and while the tunes were catchy and the costumes elaborate (and some far too crazy) it just didn’t have enough body to hold our attention. I am used to leaving the theatre toe-tapping and singing many of the songs from a show, sadly this didn’t happen with this one.

It seemed that a lot of focus had been on getting named performers for this show (Gareth Gates alternated the roles of Squidward and Divina De Campo playing Plankton) and well-known songwriters to write the music for this, these included David Bowie, Sara Bareilles, the Flaming Lips, Lady A, John Legend, Cyndi Lauper, They Might Be Giants, T.I., and Panic! at the Disco. For me, it just fell a little flat in the actual content of the show.

Of course, these are just my thoughts and I know many who have seen this and loved it, but I will always share my real thoughts.

I’d say it was suited more towards younger audiences than teens and true SpongeBob fans may find it more appealing.