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Review: The last five years

Take a cast of two, a boy and a girl. Put them together on a stage and make them sing sweet nothings and bitter remonstrations at each other for eighty minutes, without an interval. The result – a romance so sickly my eyeballs almost melted into syrup.

The Last Five Years is a series of vignettes showing the extended relationship between successful writer Jamie Wellerstein (James Leveson) and struggling actress Cathy Hiatt (Alice Gimblett), a pair of New Yorkers.

The story is about as interesting as a sub-standard Sex and the City plot, only without the sex. The gimmick is that her story begins at the end of their relationship, and his begins on the day they met.

Eventually the pair reverse roles, the stories intersecting on their wedding day half way through. Frustratingly this is the only duet in the show and highlights the plot’s dramatic thinness.

For a show supposedly about love, there isn’t much to feel good about, or to watch. When Cathy sings ‘I want you, and you, and nothing but you’ it’s difficult to appreciate why as her husband stands there mugging inanely and shuffling along. The Sondheim-esque piano-led songs range from jaunty to downbeat but are distinctly unmemorable.

James Leveson has a good voice, and grew more audible as the play progressed, but slurred an American accent he clearly isn’t confident with. Some direction that matched blocking to lyrics might have helped: why he sang ‘I wouldn’t be standing here now’ while marching directly away from his beloved I couldn’t fathom.

Alice Gimblett is the show’s saving grace, her rich and textured soprano emotionally resonant with a tender sweetness. With ‘I can do better than that’ she really came into her role, a vivid excitement about their future plans supplementing some beautiful voice ornamentation.

But Gimblett’s burgeoning talent alone may not be quite enough to justify the ticket price, considering the play’s dull story and lack of dramatic direction.

Two stars

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