Your Lie in April

28th June – 21st September 2024

Manga meets Broadway Baroque in a mouth-watering mélange of sweetness and light that hits the West End stage in Your Lie in April The Musical’s English language premiere at the Harold Pinter Theatre.

If music is the food of love you’ll need a strict diet after this dollop of syrup, schmaltz and saccharine.  You could always bop off the calories to the high-volume high-energy Japanese High School musical numbers – 23 in all.

The show treats audiences — a particularly receptive First Night one including Boy George, Todric Hall,  Sandra Dickinson and Janet Ellis — to a visual and emotional treat just this side of a sugar overdose.

Even the set looked scrumptious: cherry blossom the colour of candyfloss, all pastels and pearly lustre.

There were jarring notes too.  While the music was central — with superb piano skill from the star Zheng Xi Yong, who plays nerdy, tortured Kōsei Arima — the simple Manga cartoon style seems swallowed up in the confection.

“Manga meets Broadway Baroque in a mouth-watering mélange of sweetness and light…”

The emotional content centres around prodigy Kōsei’s guilt over the death of his perfectionist mother, a pianist whose unrelenting discipline drove her son to despair.  He could never reach her exacting standards and, blaming himself for her death, he can no longer hear his own music and so abandons a stellar future.

The two girls who have set their sights on him couldn’t be more different from each other: tomboy best friend is the typical girl-next-door Tsubaki, playful and pigtailed (Rachel Clare Chan) and the ethereal, vulnerable voice-of-an-angel Kaori (Mia Kobayashi) is his true forever love.  Poor Tsubaki has a terminal case of unrequited love, while Kaori, a brilliant violinist, suffers too. 

The big musical numbers with their soaring finales packed a punch but could be over-loud.  Softer ones held the audience in an emotional embrace, as did simple sets and lighting with snowflakes and starry skies. The set designer Justin Williams mixes quirky with kitch, with lighting design by Rory Beaton.  

Director and choreographer Nick Winston provides slick, sharp dance routines and sensuous use of mime with violin bow wielded by Kaori as the genuine musician Akiko Ishikawa plays beside her, dressed all in traditional concert hall black.

Other floaty costumes are a riot of colour in contrast to typical school uniforms of grey and scarlet blazers and ties (costume designer Kimie Nakano).

Humour came readily to the sporty hunk character Ryota, all muscles and well-timed one-liners (Dean John Wilson). And few could resist the appeal of the young Kosei, played on opening night by eight year old Theo Oh.

One of the other two young actors who take turns in the role sat behind us.  As we sucked over-priced wine gums Eoin McLoughney demolished giant Oreos.  ‘The best thing is playing Nintendo while we wait in the wings,’ he revealed.  

Even the lavish programme provokes laughter.  If we opened it in the Western left-to-right fashion the caption beneath a picture of the back end of a cat advised us: You’re reading in the wrong direction! 

Your Lie in April The Musical seems to be heading in the right direction.  This popular Japanese romantic tear-jerker had a stuttering start in Tokyo when its premier was delayed for two years due to Covid. A Japanese tour then smashed box office records. Last April it enjoyed two sold-out London concerts and now it’s wowing the West End for 12 weeks.

It’s such a sugary delight that maybe it should carry a health warning to diabetics.

CREDITS: Based on the manga Your Lie In April
by Naoshi Arakawa
published by KODANSHA Ltd.
Book by Riko Sakaguchi
English Language Book by Rinne B. Groff

Music by Frank Wildhorn
Lyrics by Carly Robyn Green and Tracy Miller
Music Arrangement and Orchestration
by Jason Howland

Producers: Carter Dixon McGill Ltd, Indie Theatrical, Pinnacle Productions, Scott Prisand, Sophie Qi in association with Rob Kolson, Liesl Wilke Mark & Minna Seitelman, Lorraine Lettieri, Mark &
Analee Reutlinger, Piers Cottee-Jones Entertainment.

Gill Martin