We really, really wanted to like Your Lie in April. The story itself is already a success: the original manga, by Naoshi Arakawa, sold over 5 million copies and was subsequently adapted into an anime TV series and then a feature film. A stage musical version opened in Tokyo in 2022, which has now been translated into English. A concert version played in London earlier this year at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and was well-received; it has now made its fully-staged West End debut at the Harold Pinter Theatre.

We wanted Your Lie in April to succeed for a number of reasons. The concert version earned rave reviews, and we hoped the full production would really deliver on that promise; it’s rare to see stories of Japanese origin play in the UK (aside from adaptations of already-successful Studio Ghibli productions); and we understand this is the first entirely East Asian cast to appear in a West End musical. It’s a shame, then, that the show itself is really quite weak.

We’ll start with the positives. There are undoubtedly some decent songs in here, which is perhaps unsurprising, as the Tony- and Grammy-nominated Broadway composer Frank Wildhorn is at the helm (although the juxtaposition of traditional manga story and imagery playing out against big Broadway musical theatre numbers does feel a little incongruous). There are some strong performances: Zheng Xi Yong as virtuoso piano star Kōsei Arima is a talented singer, dancer and – thankfully – pianist, while Mia Kobayashi as violinist Kaori Miyazono also impresses.

The show is really badly let down by its script, however: it’s clunky and full of cliches. Almost every line is cheesy, naff or downright silly, which makes some of the subject matter (it gets pretty heavy, with a focus on terminal illness and those impacted) really hard to take seriously. The characterisation is extremely shallow, with most of our characters reduced to cartoonish stereotypes. Some of the plot is unexplained; most of its twists and turns veer between the improbable and the completely implausible.

All of which results in a really quite underwhelming experience. We’re not sure who this is targeted at – it’s probably overly long and the subject matter a little dark to appeal to a younger demographic, but the dialogue is too cheesy and simplistic, and the characters too shallow, to be of interest to an adult audience. With some serious rewrites of the script there’s probably a decent show in here, but this production unfortunately isn’t the one.

GAY TIMES gives Your Lie in April – 2/5

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