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Musical Review Unique wedding woes

TOM KING sees a bitter-sweet musical, the first ever about a gay marriage

Leave to Remain
Lyric Theatre Hammersmith

AS A musical, Leave to Remain treads familiar ground.

The young Alex and Obi meet and fall in love before their respective pasts catch up with them, throwing their future together into doubt. But the fact that they’re both gay gives what would otherwise be a fairly hackneyed story some interesting new dimensions in Matt Jones and Kele Okereke's work.

The plot thickens when Alex (Billy Cullum), a US citizen whose visa is dependent on his work, announces he must leave Britain and follow his company to the UAE, effectively calling time on the couple's new and thrilling romance. The only way Alex can stay and be granted “leave to remain” is for he and Obi (Tyrone Huntley) to marry.

The latter agrees somewhat reluctantly and they begin to make plans which, of course, involve their parents. Thus we learn that addict-in-recovery Alex has fled to Britain to put the Atlantic between himself and his somewhat intense mother Diane (Johanne Murdock) and that Obi’s domineering, evangelical father Kenneth (Cornell S John) threw him out of the family home after discovering he was gay. The stage is set for conflict, to say the least.

Things fall apart at a supremely awkward dinner party and go from bad to worse. Alex and Obi’s demons return with a vengeance as we learn of addiction’s impact on one family and homosexuality’s impact on the other, though Alex’s father Brian (Martin Fisher) and Obi’s sister Chichi (Aretha Ayeh) do their best to keep the peace.

But not all is doom and gloom in Robby Smith's production. There are plenty of jokes, even if you can see them coming from a mile off, and some immersive night-club choreography, augmented by clever set design by Rebecca Brower.

The songs are pretty lacklustre, yet the first musical about gay marriage is worth seeing if you want something a little more thought-provoking than the latest travesty from Ben Elton or Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

I found myself wondering, after watching two people who’ve only been together for 10 months agree to marry each other — some might say unwisely — whether Leave to Remain may pave the way for an even more daring sequel, the first musical about a gay divorce.

Runs until February 16, box office: lyric.co.uk.

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