What a pleasure it is to encounter that rare thing - an original British rock musical by a fresh composing voice, not based on a film and/or comprising old hits. And while the result is a little rough rather than fully ready, After the Turn - developed in just three months - is sure to fly high, having got this far so fast.
This appealingly informal production still needs work, not least because it is overlong. But its in-built momentum makes it feel like it’s the British equivalent to Rent, full of punchy, raw and youthful energy. It helps that much of the score has already been tried if not previously tested - composer Tim Prottey-Jones has released many of the songs heard here on two albums first, so he already has something of a following.
Working with his director Sarah Henley, he has made the songs live and breathe, and occasionally wail, as alternatively poignant and powerful expressions of a compelling original story of Michael, a promising musician, who is rendered mute by the sudden death of his mother.
The show resourcefully solves the problem of having a mute leading man by providing him with a shadow teenage self who can give voice to the thoughts and feelings he cannot himself express. As the two Michaels, Liam Doyle and Stephen Rolley are wonderfully sympathetic in both rage and hurt.
A terrific young cast animate the other characters around him in strongly differentiated performances, including Tori Allen-Martin as his ex-girlfriend Lauren, now partnered with his former bandmate Wolf (Greg Oliver), Ashleigh Gray as his mother and Stevie Webb as his uncle.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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