WILL STONE is frustrated by a performance that chooses to garble the lyrics and drown the songs in reverb
Latest editorial
Unique wedding woes
TOM KING sees a bitter-sweet musical, the first ever about a gay marriage
Passionate partners: Tyrone Huntley (left) and Billy Cullum in Leave to Remain
[Helen Maybanks]
RITA DI SANTO points out the social experience of exploitation and oppression that inform the popular winners at this year’s festival
PETER MASON is tickled by a new book and exhibition that mine the rotten anachronism of the monarchy for laughs
A Nazi zeppelin whodunnit, death amidst detoxification, a twistaholic’s delight, and noir fiction for criminals
STEVE JOHNSON salutes the mellifluous tones and clear-minded political message of a uniquely relevant Birmingham-born singer-songwriter
STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
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.
Similar stories
SIMON PARSONS is beguiled by a dream-like exploration of the memories of a childhood in Hong Kong
MARY CONWAY revels in the Irish American language and dense melancholy of O’Neill’s last and little-known play
‘There's outrage aplenty in this production but we never quite get to the dark night of the soul,’ writes WILL STONE
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Better Man, How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, Mufasa: The Lion King, Dolphin Boy