Figaro: An Original Musical
London Palladium

NOTHING to do with The Marriage of Figaro, this new musical tells the story of an impressionable young female singer, Sienna, who is literally and figuratively hypnotised by a controlling, philandering impresario who wants to feature her as the prize act in his travelling show.

It turns out that Figaro – for it is he – has done this kind of thing before. When Sienna eventually twigs that he’s not really in love with her, she tries to release herself from his clutches.

Though a new storyline, it’s a rather confusing one, especially at the end, where we’re not quite sure which bits of it have been real or imagined.

In any case it becomes clear that the plot and dialogue are just a way of linking together a long series of poppy power ballads. If you like that sort of thing then you’ll be happy enough – but if not, then there’s little else to keep you occupied.

It might seem strange to criticise a musical for having too much in the way of song, but without a robust foundation no show can really stand up to scrutiny – unless its compositions are of a truly outstanding quality.

That is certainly not the case here. While there are some highlights, there’s nothing much that claims the attention either song-wise or lyric-wise. Notwithstanding the odd experimental offering – including a strange house music number in the second half – the compositions are all very samey.

As a consequence everything rests heavily on the impressive voice of Cayleigh Capaldi (as Sienna) to up the ante, which she does with verve. But powerful vocals are not enough to hide the other defects.

Aside from the plot deficiencies, John Robyns as Figaro is not sinister enough, and there’s little sense of how he keeps his hold on so many people, beyond the mesmerising power of his swinging gold watch.

Despite plenty of possibilities there’s no real element of horror or drama, and none of the characters have any depth. Supposedly set in Italy – though you wouldn’t know it if you weren’t told – half the cast have American accents and the rest are British, which adds to the disjointedness.

This was the first performance of a brief two-night run at the Palladium – a world premiere no less – though presumably in preparation for a longer spell at another venue. That perhaps explains why the set, dominated by cloth and wood planks, appeared to have been assembled on a tight budget; ditto the costumes and even the minimalist £7 programme.

Those are all things that can be upgraded in the near future, but can the book be knocked into the sort of shape that lifts the whole production up a considerable notch? That’s the key question for when it re-appears in the West End, as surely it originators would like it to do.

Run ended.