The Last Five Years

On Thursday night, I sat in the Greenwich theatre auditorium quite satisfied that we had managed to get good tickets just the day before the show.

The musical production follows the relationship of two young characters across the five years that they are together. The only thing is, that they travel through it in different directions. Whilst Jamie begins at the start of their relationship and lives it forward, Cathy travels backwards and they meet only once in the middle – at their wedding day.

With Danielle Hope starring as Cathy I expected a flawless vocal, which I didn’t necessarily get but it’s hard to fault her acting ability. Although there were more than a few fluffs in the vocals, I rather enjoyed Hope’s excitable portrayal of Cathy. A particular favourite was the number that saw some creative lighting design - as Cathy began to sing as though auditioning in front of a panel of judges, we were treated to an unpredictable spotlight that gave us the chance to hear Cathy’s inner thoughts with Hope showing a hilarious aptitude for comical honesty.

I also quite enjoyed her performance of 'See I'm Smiling', as she waded through the emotional rapids of love and happiness to fear and anger.

Jon Robyns' performance as Jamie was similarly vocally flawed however, he too managed to win back my audial applause with his rendition of 'The Schmuel Song'. I also rather enjoyed the comedy within his performance of 'A Miracle Would Happen'. Speaking wishfully about flirting with other women but it's utter impossibility as women 'always know', made me sport more than a smile.

The set was simple, one bed split in two representing the broken relationship but not suggesting that it did not exist as a relationship at all. There were also two clocks running in opposite directions, obviously mirroring the fact that our two leads are travelling within different realms of time. Placed on stage also, was a live orchestra. Unfortunately I think that the leads' radio mics were turned up so high that the music was lost underneath them, which is why whenever they missed a note is was so blindingly obvious. If I was the sound technician I would most definitely have turned down the main vocals, quietened the piano and brought the levels of the other instruments up. With the other instruments level, it would have thickened the timbre that the production needed to venture outside of the boundaries keeping it bordering along the lines of 'school play'.

As I say, I can't really flaw the acting ability, more just the vocals, which believe it or not is actually quite important when venturing to watch a musical. However, 'The Schmuel Song' and 'Climbing Uphill' rescued it from the disaster corner of my verdict. I certainly think it helped that I related to the couple in the piece. When everything seemed to be going right for Jamie and crashing down upon Cathy at the beginning, I hated him. I actually wanted him to stop singing and fail. Horrible I know, but at that particular moment in time, I identified with Cathy's struggle and wanted him to stop and think about her.

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Overall, it was certainly an applaudable effort. I didn't waste an entire night by going to see it and it stimulated some interesting topics of conversation between myself and my other half on the walk home. I would have liked it to have seemed more rehearsed, for the sound to have been perfected better and for the characters to have more than just that one opportunity to interact with one another but it was not so. I'd certainly like to see it with a bigger budget and with perhaps a less edgy tone to the lead voices.