Your Lie In April

Harold Pinter Theatre • 28th June - 21st September

Your Lie In April has already been on quite a journey in order to reach London’s West End stage. Originally conceived as a manga comic strip, written and illustrated by Naoshio Arakawa in 2011, it went on to become an anime TV series in 2014 and by 2017 there were 5 million copies of the comic book in circulation, with its first English translation appearing in 2015. The idea for a staged musical version had first been announced in 2019 but, due to the COVID pandemic, its world premiere and subsequent tour had to be postponed until May 2022, when it eventually opened in Tokyo. It is now making its English language premiere at the Harold Pinter Theatre where it is playing a twelve-week run until 21 September.

Despite this journey, and having already acquired an army of superfans, I fully admit to being completely oblivious to either the story or it’s long history… this, however, gave me the perfect opportunity to discover whether Your Lie In April could work as a stand-alone piece of new musical theatre in its own right, and posed the question whether I too would become a superfan by the end?

Things certainly get off to a good start with an impressively rousing opening song “If I Can’t Hear The Music” setting up the story, (English language book by Rinne B. Groff from Riko Sakaguchi’s original manga translation), of teenage music prodigy Kosei Arima, (Zheng Xi Yong, himself a very accomplished pianist), who has lost the ability to play the piano ever since the death of his mother, (Lucy Park), who still appears to Kosei in flashbacks, relentlessly driving his younger self to achieve technical perfection, with her relentless criticism not only managing to break their relationship, but also his ability to play, as the memory of her unforgiving voice telling him his musical ability is ‘never good enough’ still haunts the now teenage Kosei every time his fingers touch the piano’s keys, drowning out the sound of his playing and making him deaf to the music he makes.

The piano looms large at the centre of Justin Williams striking set throughout, surrounded by an ornate tiered platformed stage reminiscent in style of a decorative Japanese garden, complete with bridge and cherry blossom tree. Rory Beaton’s lighting design helps transform the stage at various times into a school, home, hospital, a canelé café and a concert hall, also helped by some cleverly integrated video screens that manage to enhance rather than detract from the more traditional tone that has been successfully created, Dan Lights video design managing to add its nod towards the manga-style anime magic of the original.

We are soon introduced to Kosei’s school friends, Tsubaki (Rachel Clare Chan) and Ryota (Dean John Wilson), whose attempts to coax the musical prodigy back to the piano have all but failed, until the arrival of free-spirited violinist Kaori (Mia Kobayashi, making a very impressive professional debut), whose appearance brings a new flourishing friendship and a final chance to lift the debilitating spell Kosei’s overbearing mother has left on her son. Underpinning all of this is a high school love story, the course of which unsurprisingly does not run smooth between the four friends… this is high-school after all. The emotional entanglement of this love ‘cube’ does have the occasional tendency to stray into the saccharine, but is more than made up for by the stylistic approach to the source material, as well as incredible performances from the show’s four leads, especially Mia Kobayashi and Zheng Xi Yong who, as the nerdish Kosei Arima can clearly not only act, sing and play piano, (a surprising full recital of Rachmaninov’s G minor Prelude in the second half receiving a well-deserved and lengthy round of applause from the audience), but he also manages to show off some killer dance moves… all whilst managing to maintain an endearing ‘nerdy’ persona! This guy’s got skills!

In the programme, a quote from composer Frank Wildhorn says, “This whole adventure is a love letter to the beautiful power of music”, and there is a real sense of respect given to both the music and the musicians that I’ve not often seen (or heard) to this extent in many West End musicals I’ve seen. Here the music is not only allowed to breathe, as in the afore mentioned piece played by Kosei, but bringing violinist (Akiko Ishikawa) centre stage, as she scores Kaori’s violin playing, was a really nice way to get around Mia Kobayashi not being an accomplished violinist herself, and is an impressive stylistic choice from director (and choreographer) Nick Winston, as is the moment when the orchestra is revealed at the top of the stage, once again bringing an elevated sense of respect to the music we are hearing and the musicians that are playing it. A fitting approach to a story where it is such a pivotal part of the narrative.

With its themes of life, love and the power of music, Your Lie In April is as uplifting and life affirming as it is heartbreaking and inspiring, brought to life by an exceptionally talented cast who deserved every second of the audiences extended standing ovation.

★★★★★ (and yes, I am definitely well on the way to becoming a superfan)