Since its first iteration as a manga, created by Naoshi Arakawa in 2011, the romantic drama Your Lie In April has sold 7.5 million copies in Japan and internationally, and been incarnated in several forms across page, stage and screen. This new English-language adaptation, written by the American playwright Rinne B Groff for its European premiere, demonstrates why Arawaka’s coming-of-age story is one of the most popular in manga history.
Kōsei Arima (Zheng Xi Yong), a young piano prodigy dubbed “the human metronome” on account of his technical precision, has been unable to perform since his mother’s death. He won a music competition on the last day he spoke to her, and he now believes that somehow he killed her. Seemingly by chance, the irrepressible violinist Kaori Miyazono (Mia Kobayashi) barrels into his life; with her free-spirited approach to life and musicianship, Kaori encourages Kōsei to let go of the perfectionism his late mother’s disciplinarian temper inculcated, and start playing again. His friends, meanwhile, jock Ryota Watari (Dean John-Wilson) and best mate Tsubaki Sawabe (Rachel Clare Chan), support him in this endeavour – but they also complicate the story further, because the four friends form a love square of unrequited feelings.
Teenage angst and a built-in musical premise: what could be a better premise for a hit West End musical? And Your Lie in April has most of the makings of such a hit. April is usually the height of Japan’s annual cherry-blossom bloom, and Justin Williams’s elegant set-design takes full advantage, with a cherry tree set down in a Japanese garden, complete with ornamental foot-bridge. This is backgrounded by shoji screens onto which impressionistic and anime-style projections from Nathan Fernée and Isabel Sun do a remarkably imaginative job of indicating changes of place, time and mood.
All the performances, including the live band and a star turn from violinist Akiko Ishikawa, are spot on, but the two leads are exceptional. Yong, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, is also a virtuosically accomplished concert pianist, playing Chopin and Rachmaninov on the grand piano that dominates the stage. Meanwhile, Kobayashi, making her professional debut, is astoundingly effervescent. The word “mellifluous” could have been invented with her voice in mind.
It’s a shame, then, that all of this is let down by Frank Wildhorn’s generic show-tunes. These take up a substantial part of the 150-minute running time, and they stand out in sharp and tawdry relief against all the other successful elements of the show – so uninspiring, so overly Americanised. The play, in fact, verges on sentimental throughout; thankfully, it narrowly avoids becoming saccharine by virtue of the plot twist that reveals the “lie” of the title. The missteps with the score are hard to overlook; on balance, though, Your Lie in April is still a pleasant way for families to while away a couple of hours.
Until Sept 21. Tickets: 020 7206 1174; haroldpintertheatre.co.uk
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