Review: Figaro: An Original Musical (London Palladium)

Review by Izzy Tierney

⭐️⭐️

Making its world premiere at The London Palladium is Figaro: An Original Musical that follows Sienna, a young girl who dreams of escaping from her father's farm and pursuing a life of singing. After meeting two orphans, she is introduced to Figaro, a man who promises to make her dreams a reality when he casts her as the new leading lady in his travelling show, but Sienna soon begins to understand that the fame she has always longed for comes with a price. Creators, Ashley Jana and Will Nunziata, characterise their new musical as a “hauntingly beautiful tale”, but I’m sad to say that despite my enjoyment, it mostly haunts for the wrong reasons.

The main problem is the book. Described as “part love story, part mystery”, the love story here feels ingenuine, and the mystery morphs more into a string of unanswered questions and unfinished plot lines that leave the audience confused instead of wondering. For example, certain aspects are underdeveloped to the point they feel unnecessary, a big one being Sienna’s mother. When we meet Sienna, she is a young girl who lives a simple life on a farm with her father, Antonio, after her mother disappeared when she was an infant. She loves to sing, feeling connected to her mother when she does so, and her goal in life is to be a singer. She longs to leave the farm and her overprotective father behind to go out and experience the world. All of these are perfectly normal things yet she is described as “disturbed” by Antonio who seems to be genuinely concerned for her mental state. Sienna never shows any signs of insanity or being unstable unless (and I pray this is not the case), the entire show is a figment of her imagination.

Sienna meets Figaro when she somehow becomes separated from her father and some women with black umbrellas forcefully walk around her, making her panic even more, until she ends up in a different part of Italy (where the entire show is set yet everyone has some variation of an English or American accent) and she comes across two orphans who work for Figaro and convince her to join their show. The umbrella women appear again at the end (who we now know include Lucia and Gia who are part of the travelling show) and the same thing happens before Sienna is reunited with her maybe-just-murdered father (I would've included a spoiler warning but there's nothing to spoil as I genuinely don't know if he is dead or alive). In act two, Antonio reveals to Lucia that Sienna's mother had not disappeared but had spent the last fifteen years in an asylum before passing away the year before. No more is said about her mother and Sienna is never told the truth before her father is possibly killed, but this would be a big indication that Sienna too may suffer with some kind of mental illness and has dreamt the whole thing up. However, Lucia interacting with Antonio far away from and unbeknownst to Sienna means she exists outside of the travelling show, therefore suggesting it isn’t all in Sienna’s head, rendering the asylum revelation pointless and leaving the umbrella women and sudden transportation with no explanation.

Taking it back to the beginning, the show starts with a dead Figaro laying across the stage (he’s there for about twenty minutes before the show even starts just to get up and walk off the stage a couple of minutes into Sienna’s first song). It's clearly a foreboding snippet of the ending, designed to intrigue audiences into how the story concludes in such a way, but unfortunately the ending we’re given doesn’t make sense. When Lucia leaves Figaro, she happens to encounter Antonio, who has spent weeks looking for Sienna, and informs him of where his daughter is and how he must kill Figaro to ensure her safe return. She tells him to never look at Figaro’s swinging pendulum watch (which he immediately does) and to look after the children once he’s killed Figaro as they actually weren’t abandoned by their parents; Figaro stole them to perform in his show, pretending he had saved them after their abandonment and threatening Lucia that he'd kill her if she ever let on. What ends up happening to the children is unknown. Similarly, how or why any of this happens is never explained, making the ending unsatisfying as it gives no concrete conclusions to anything and doesn't make sense.

Even parts of the script that do make sense, for example, Figaro being a monster, are often told to the audience rather than shown. He manipulates, cheats and abuses women, he tries to kill Lucia and he steals money from his audiences by making the two children he stole go and pickpocket - it’s very clear that he is not a nice man - but very little time is spent showing us this, instead we seem to spend more time watching his travelling show and Sienna singing than actually learning about him or the other characters. There are many elements of what could make an interesting story here, but they’re jumbled into something oddly paced with loose threads where nothing is properly fleshed out. 

The stronger half of this show is the music, written solely by Ashley Jana. While the songs do blend into each other a bit and some are almost crammed into the show, they’re overall an enjoyable listen that when played by the beautiful London Musical Theatre Orchestra, feel powerful and enticing and create an overarching theme of drama and danger. The lyrics don’t always live up to the dramatic nature of the music, falling into the same trap of telling the audience things without expressing them, but some cuts and small changes (and a better book) could make this into an excellent soundtrack.

Every one of these songs is sung to perfection with consistently gorgeous vocals from the entire cast. Cayleigh Capaldi leads as Sienna, who with a stunning softness to her voice manages to belt the most challenging pieces with ease. Unfortunately though, it’s hard to properly empathise with her character due to the weak narrative and non-existant chemistry between her and Jon Robyns’ Figaro, who are supposed to be the focal love story (she has more chemistry with Ava Brennan’s Gia). There’s no denying Robyns talented vocal abilities, but his portrayal of Figaro is completely at odds with what the script is telling us. For a supposedly magnetic, charming womaniser, Figaro falls flat (quite literally... for twenty minutes before the show even begins) with a distinct lack of charisma from Robyns that fails to evoke any strong feeling in the audience regardless of his actions on stage. It’s a shame as the character is almost like an evil version of P. T. Barnum from The Greatest Showman, which could be an incredibly fun, entertaining villain to watch but in this production borders on tedious.

Bringing some welcome fire is Lucia, played by the ever-phenomenal Aimie Atkinson who steals the spotlight whenever she graces the stage. Despite the fact Lucia is a supporting character who is mainly there to propel Sienna and Figaro’s arcs, Atkinson delivers a nuanced portrayal of a woman navigating the world with a tough exterior and radiating confidence, who underneath is hopeful, kind-hearted and angry at the years of mistreatment from Figaro. She has excellent comedic timing, brings more than enough passion and chemistry for both Lucia and Figaro, and captivates the audience with her beautiful voice, a highlight being her seductive, burlesque-style solo, Tease. Although underused, Ava Brennan is a delight as Gia, the costume designer for Figaro’s travelling show, who enhances any scenes she is in with her funny, no-nonsense presence and breathtaking vocals. Her character is given a tiny bit of backstory during act two, but coming so late on with little emotional depth leaves it feeling like a pointless bit of dialogue, however Brennan makes the best of everything she’s given.

The stars of this musical though. are not the adults, but Cian Eagle-Service and Sophia Goodman who play the kids, Gianni and Amelia. Having played Gavroche and young Eponine in Les Misérables and starring as the title roles in Oliver! and Matilda, Eagle-Service and Goodman are no strangers to the pressure of performing in a West End show. Their portrayals as the adorable, cheeky children who long for a proper family are flawless, with a believable sibling-like chemistry between them, fantastic comedic timing and vocal abilities that are extraordinary. They complement each other perfectly, especially when singing their duets, the first of which genuinely made me tear up as they sing so heartbreakingly sweetly of wishing for a mother and father to love and guide them. Both have a more than deserved, incredibly bright future ahead of them and I’m excited to watch it unfold! 

As much as I hope Figaro also has a bright future, it needs a serious rewrite and workshops in more intimate venues first. There seems to be this idea that the bigger the premiere is of new material, the better chance it has of success, but that isn’t always the case. The Palladium is simply too vast for a new, limited production like this, and despite Justin Williams’ clever two-story set design and Alex Musgrave’s impressive lighting, the stage still engulfed the performance, hindering any attempt at interesting movement and direction.

The current form of Figaro is far from being ready for a West End stage, but there is something about it; a faint heartbeat that’s bursting with promise. It’s telling that even with my long list of issues, I still enjoyed it. I'm fully aware I've analysed it more than is necessary for a reviewer to do so, but that's why my review is as long as it is, not because I didn’t like the show, but because I truly believe it has potential, which ultimately makes its shortcomings more disappointing.

I think I could really love this musical, but it needs some major improvements in smaller spaces before it can shine in the way it wants to. I sincerely hope that given the chance to metamorphose, this won't be the last we see of Figaro.

To keep up to date with Figaro as it develops, follow the team at https://www.instagram.com/figaromusical?igsh=cmlhNGk4NXpmN2Ri

Photos by Fahad Alinizi