When you fall in love with someone you only have eyes for them. If they ignore you, it can feel as if you’ve been erased. It’s a kind of murder – or so it proves in Julia Jordan and Juliana Nash’s clever chamber rock musical which has plenty of sharp wit and the driving force of a noir thriller.
Sam Yates’s staging boasts a quartet of spot-on performances. Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, a small, sardonic smile playing around her lips, is the moody, mysterious narrator who tells the story of a New York love triangle. Kerry Ellis, with a voice so caressing it’s to kill for, plays Sara, who is in love with bad boy Tom (Ramin Karimloo). When Tom leaves her she falls into the arms of good guy Michael (Norman Bowman). Together, they build a life, have a child and are happy until, while suffering from depression, Sara contacts Tom again.
It’s a pity that this isn’t staged in a more intimate space, which would bring the audience into the heart of the action and implicate us more. Although the characters are not particularly interesting and the show is full of cliche, there is much to hold the attention, including Jordan’s often flinty lyrics, a sung-through score that is always moving the action forward, an unusually thoughtful foray into the effects of being a parent on a couple’s relationship, and a neat little twist that undercuts the notion of a femme fatale.
• At the Arts theatre, London, until 3 December. Box office: 020-7836 8463.
