Your Lie In April, Harold Pinter Theatre Review

Written by Eliott for Theatre & Tonic

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review.

Adapting a twenty-two episode anime series for the stage is a tough call, and so little exposition to counterbalance characters motives, and full backstories scrambled into a single line for us to just accept. This West End run of Your Lie in April does display some heavenly vocals and pin drop moments, stumbles at times in making us comprehend character dynamics and relationships between each other, when we have so little to go on with supporting friends and the rivalry that emerges.

If coming into the musical blind, with no understanding of its source material or international acclaim, its rich creative elements will most definitely draw you into Japan’s culture, most notably from Dan Light’s video design, which moves with scene changes and stays truthful to the anime, especially in the way Kōsei (Zheng Xi Yong) sees his mother’s face, a key relationship that shines, as Theo Oh steals many moments as the young Kōsei, both in vocals and performance. With this then all set against Justin William’s playground of levels and blossom overgrown around the proscenium arch, you are at moments taken aback from the beauty that Nick Winston directs with ease.

With twenty songs cemented into the 2hr 40mins running time, there are moments of repetition that feels like treading on the same groundwork, as we follow Kōsei and Kaori’s (Mia Kobayashi, making her professional stage debut) arc. The lack of exposition in Riko Sakaguchi’s book also means that Dean John-Wilson (Ryota) and Rachel Clare Chan (Tsubaki) fall by the wayside, though still manage to leave a lasting mark when they do get small pockets of stage presence that has the audience in either hysterics, or emotional heartbreak. Finally, Ernest Stroud and Ericka Posadas must also be given credit for their chemistry as Takeshi and Emi, rivals to Kōsei, who give strong presence on stage, though again due to the condensed adaptation for the stage, feel lost and rather two-dimensional, with no real endpoint.

Overall, Your Lie in April is a visual feast for the eyes, and you can see just how much the cast are relishing in telling a story which deserves to be told on a West End stage. Though the criticism of the show only comes from someone who has been so passionate about the anime, the universal themes and heart of its story will absolutely stick with its theatre audience, and will hopefully enjoy a successful run at The Harold Pinter Theatre this summer.

At Harold Pinter Theatre until 21 Sept 2024.

★ ★ ★

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