If you’re going to adapt a bestseller, don’t choose the A-Z

What’s the quickest way to create a hit musical? Base it on a bestselling book. The writers of The A-Z of Mrs P have done just that. But they’ve chosen the wrong book. You twits. You need to pick a popular novel, not the London street directory. The main character, Phyllis Pearsall, spent years trudging the pavements of the capital creating her catalogue of 23,000 streets. In this show, the character of Mrs P, a posh and self-contained bumpkin, proves dramatically inert. The writers seem to have twigged that she’s a dud, so they’ve turned their attention to her uppity Hungarian father and his sozzled Irish wife. But these two yield no rewards either. He’s a shouty nuisance and she’s a whimpering wreck. Several of the songs cleverly recreate the repetitive rat-a-tat soundscape of Mrs P’s diligent drudgery through London. This is well done, certainly, but, like the show, it’s the wrong thing to have attempted in the first place.