'Your Lie in April' review — this touchingly sincere manga musical has a knocks-you-flat emotional force

Read our review of Frank Wildhorn's Your Lie in April, starring Zheng Xi Yong and Mia Kobayashi, now in performances at the Harold Pinter Theatre to 21 September.

Do you ever feel more intensely than during your teenage years? Surely not – which is why adolescent angst is such a brilliant match for musical theatre, as we see in Your Lie in April. This 2022 stage adaptation of Naoshi Arakawa’s popular manga comic series, now making its full English-language premiere following a concert presentation, has a knocks-you-flat emotional force that you cannot resist. It will absolutely make you cry.

But it avoids becoming too mawkish, thanks partly to the sheer passion of the writing (English version of Riko Sakaguchi’s book by Rinne B. Groff, lyrics by Carly Robyn Green and Tracy Miller, and the marvellous score is by American composer Frank Wildhorn, who also brought us Death Note and Bonnie & Clyde), and partly to the commitment with which this brilliant young cast deliver material that clearly chimes with them.

Former piano prodigy Kо̄sei Arima can no longer hear his own playing following the death of his mother – a hard taskmaster who demanded technical perfection. A chance meeting with the talented, free-spirited violinist Kaori Miyazono leads him back to the keys, supported by loyal high school friends Ryota Watari and Tsubaki Sawabe. But more tragedy is to come.

The subject matter is ideal for a musical, since it’s all about the place of music in our lives – whether as a means of self-expression, connecting with others, conjuring memories, working through difficult emotions, or conferring immortality. Kaori cares less about being perfect than making an impression on an audience: that way, she can “live in their hearts forever”.

Cannily, the show lets its teen characters go epically big with their feelings (at that age, being friend-zoned by your crush really does feel like the end of the world), while also gently teasing them. “Well, you’re intense” quips Watari on meeting Kaori, and Sawabe rightly gives Kо̄sei a hard time for becoming so “emo and dark”.

But there’s no ironic framing to Wildhorn’s songs – quite the opposite. Each one of these sensationally catchy pop-rock anthems has a disarming sincere directness. It will connect instantly with young audiences, and it makes the rest of us feel 16 again: open-hearted, vulnerable, willing to risk everything. It also nods to traditional sweeping melodramas in its operatic sentiment.

Zheng Xi Yong beautifully unleashes the buttoned-up Kо̄sei’s hopes and torments through song, while Rachel Clare Chan, as the otherwise tough Tsubaki, shares the pain of unrequited love in her big ballad. Dean John Wilson is great comic support as the swaggering jock Watari, with his terrible pick-up lines and Superman pose, though he’s more astute than it initially appears.

But the revelation here, playing Kaori, is Mia Kobayashi in a true star-is-born professional debut. She turns what could be an irritating Manic Pixie Dream Girl character into a charismatic delight, and she has a dazzling combination of exquisite vocal tone and a huge power belt – a Mariah Carey in the making.

The supporting cast sketch in fellow students and, amusingly, a group of feverishly competitive musicians. It’s a shame director Nick Winston doesn’t utilise them more; they feel hemmed in by Justin Williams’s fussy multilevel set with its dominating cherry blossoms. The backing video is too generic (it’s like a series of computer screensavers) and the lighting effects and dry ice are cheesy.

When the company and the material are this strong, you don’t need such distractions. Especially when they play – and Zheng Xi Yong, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, is also a remarkably accomplished concert pianist. Violinist Akiko Ishikawa provides Kaori’s gorgeously vivid performances, standing next to Kobayashi. As a bonus, this production sells you on the wonder of classical music.

Notably, this is the first entirely Southeast Asian cast in a West End musical. But there’s nothing remotely tokenistic about it. Instead, Your Lie in April gives a deserving showcase to exciting talent, while conveying touching messages such as the need to embrace love’s sorrow as well as joy. You’ll find both in spades in this impassioned, uplifting and deeply moving musical.

Your Lie in April is at the Harold Pinter Theatre to 21 September. Book Your Lie in April tickets on London Theatre.

Photo credit: Your Lie in April (Photos by Craig Sugden)