REVIEW | For Tonight: A New Musical, Adelphi Theatre
★ ★ ★ ★
Reviewer - Becky A
*Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review
I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the west end one-night-only premiere of the original new musical For Tonight directed wonderfully by Nick Evans. This was the first opportunity for UK audiences to see the full show following its concept album release back in 2021. This was a concert-style performance with a live orchestra on stage.
The story is set in 1832 in a small town in Wales where a Romani family find shelter and friendship, but soon after their arrival, an unknown disease brings tragedy. This show brings forth a unique blend of the Welsh language and culture with beautiful songwriting (Shenelle Salcido & Spencer Williams) and a stunning ensemble cast. Passion and emotion run deep throughout the lyrics and performances. I went into this show fairly blind as I wanted to experience the feeling of hearing the songs for the first time in a live setting. I truly thought this gave me a much more unbiased view of what to expect from the show and thought this really partnered well with how uplifting this show made me feel.
The vocals from the entire cast; Jacob Young, Amy Di Bartolomeo, Dale Evans, Emily Burnett and special mention to Charlotte-Hannah Jones, among others, were electrifying, bringing a hypnotic atmosphere to each song. They really worked at keeping audience engagement with how well they connected with each of their parts. It’s so important to have a show with a cast that you can tell has so much of a bond with their onstage characters, it really whisks you away within the story with them.
The set design (Stewart J Charlesworth) is a visual masterpiece. If you weren’t already captivated by the strong vocals, the colour scheme and layout of the stage and projections most certainly will. The clever use of these projections is used to make a realistic sense of each setting and transports you to the docks of Liverpool to the grief-stricken farm in Wales. This was such a highlight of the show for me, so cleverly done. A tilted stage was used for the main part of the set, which was something I’d never seen used before and was an interesting way to lay out each scene.
I’m not massively familiar with Welsh or Celtic history so this concept within a show was completely new to me. However, this is a story that needs to and deserves to be told. In a world where conflict between cultures is so rife the message within this tale is more than relevant to a lot of people living today.
Kevan Allen must be applauded for his choreography. The contemporary feel of the dances, whether that be the full ensemble or just a select couple of the cast, was captivating. You could get lost in watching the dancers for a while and not lose sense of the story due to how they portrayed it within their movements.
For Tonight is a beautifully told tale of acceptance, love, loss, grief and discrimination, which is a wonderfully diverse concoction of themes that they managed to follow through well without making the story too heavy or hard to understand. With beautiful music (“Stay” being the stand-out emotional duet for me) and a lovely score, I am very intrigued to see how far this production can go and where it could fit in on the west end stage. There is definitely room for it.
