Your Lie in April assessment: Endearingly odd musical adaptation of youngster m | Theatre | Entertainment | EUROtoday

Musicals based mostly on Japanese manga are all the fad, it appears. Following carefully on the heels of Death Note comes this musical adaptation of Naoshi Arakawa’s celebrated manga-turned-anime about teenage romance and the therapeutic energy of music.

The English model with music by Frank Wildhorn and lyrics from Carly Robyn Green & Tracy Miller is an endearingly odd encounter between East and West. With one or two exceptions the songs are generic compositions-by-numbers and the story is nearly operatically absurd.

Teenage piano prodigy Kosei (Zheng Xi Yong) can’t hear his enjoying after his Tiger Mom (Lucy Park) dies. Two women – his greatest good friend, tomboyish Tsubaki (Rachel Clare Chan) and maverick violinist Kaori (Mia Kobayashi) – compete for his consideration whereas trying to steer him again to the keyboard.

As the story enters the second stage, nevertheless, it turns into clear that there are larger depths to the incipient teenage tragedy.

Most notable of all is the truth that Zheng Xi Yong not solely sings and acts nicely but additionally performs the piano all through, together with an immaculate rendition of a Rachmaninoff Prelude within the scholarship competitors.

Some of the voices turn into strident within the higher registers however usually talking that is the type of fervent, heartfelt and shamelessly honest piece of musical theatre that we not often see any extra. Anyone searching for lip-curling irony could be suggested to look elsewhere.

Your Lie in April is on the Harold Pinter Theatre till September 21