The Song of Purple Summer

Last year, I discovered the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester, a converted 19th century factory, and saw their production of Pippin - that has since transferred to the Southwark Playhouse, garnering 5 star reviews along the way; fast forward a bit and I went back to catch their hotly anticipated production of Spring Awakening.

Written by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater, the show follows a group of teenagers in 19th century Germany as they try and discover what sexuality means, with little to no help from their adult and more conservative peers.

Adapted from a German play of the same name (which was originally banned for its subject matters: not just sex, but also child abuse, homosexuality and suicide), the musical version came to Broadway in 2006, winning the Triple Crown Tony (Best Musical, Score and Book) in 2007 amongst others. A London version in 2009 followed, and won the Best New Musical Olivier. In addition, the recent Broadway revival with the Deaf West Theatre Company was nominated for 3 more Tonys.
The piece has brought many big names to the table, the original cast having starred Lea Michele, Jonathan Groff and Skylar Astin, and the London transfer having starred Charlotte Wakefield (Crazy For You, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and Iwan Rheon (best known as GoT's Ramsey Bolton, and who won an Oliver Award for his performance as Moritz).

As you may have gathered, the piece is pretty dark, exploring the consequences of what happens when issues such as these are not discussed openly, and the younger generation are not listened to, and so it is rather emotional: there is one moment of light relief however (in a rather ironic way), which comes in Totally F***ed - best song of the night, and the refrain is possibly the easiest song to sing along to in the history of musical theatre - it goes "Blah Blah Blah" (that's not even a joke by the way!).

The cast features of a group of very talented kids, for many of whom this show is their professional debut, and vocally their were stunning, harmonies mixing together as beautifully like melted chocolate - it just shows how good a score the show has. I also loved its use of lighting and movement: director Luke Sheppard (In The Heights), has done a fantastic job bringing this piece, to what turns out to be the perfect space to perform it - although this could well follow Pippin and Hair with a London transfer.

I don't really want to go into it much more as I want you to go an see this for yourselves, and definitely don't want to spoil anything. This is definitely NOT one to take kids too - as for taking your parents, it wholly depends on whether you think they would enjoy it or not -  I went to see it with a college mate of mine (shout out to Sara here!); just make sure you bring some tissues.

Spring Awakening is running until the 3rd May - but get in QUICK because tickets are selling out fast!