Rating: ★★★
Venue: Marylebone Theatre, London
Cast: Collette Guitart, Tobias Turley, Owen Arkrow, Danny Whelan, Mark Wilshire, Ollie Wray, Charley Robbie, Danny Colligan, Thomas Sutcliffe, Millie Robins and Nathan Shaw
WHITE ROSE: The Musical, is a powerful new musical that follows the inspiring story of a courageous group of university students who stood up to Hitler.
Set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany, the musical follows Sophie and Hans Scholl and a group of young activists as they create and distribute leaflets challenging Hitler’s propaganda.
In a world where the current climate is like looking in a mirror back to the 1940s, art that showcases the still ongoing persecution of the Jews is needed now more than ever. Is this new musical up to the task?
The White Rose were a resistance movement originally made up of non-Jewish German university students to oppose the Hitler regime. This new musical explores the movement, created by brother and sister duo Hans and Sophie Scholl (Tobias Turley & Collette Guitart), and the work they did to bring hope and strength to people in some incredibly dark times.
With a very strong score written by Natalie Brice, the numbers are full of beauty, strength and power both in their music and their lyrics (Brian Belding). The final number ‘Who Cares?’ is a vulnerable power ballad that left me with goosebumps, although unfortunately not as emotional as I would have liked to be by the end.
Alex Musgrave’s lighting design was gorgeous and cleverly highlighted the powerful moments in the show. I was left disappointed by the extremely talented Justin Williams’s design for this set, it felt sparse and ambiguous and I lacked a clear understanding of where we were supposed to be.
Sadly the positives of this production are heavily outweighed. The show doesn’t give the vibe of a musical, but rather a play with songs in it, often feeling disjointed and under-directed. The musical numbers were always very predictably introduced, with a song coming in exactly when you would expect within a scene which played a big part in removing the emotional weight that that number may have had.
The biggest let down for this show was the book. With an extremely talented cast as strong as this only serving to highlight the flaws within the show and the lack of direction. Most musical numbers were solo with the rest of the cast awkwardly stood around watching them belt out a number that was often difficult to connect to connect to the rest of the story. Collette Guitart has proven she can shine brightly in any role handed to her, as she embodies a very one dimensional character with grace and strength. Every single member of the cast have truly sensational voices, with a special mention to Charley Robbie who sadly has a limited amount of stage time. The show seemed to be trying to tell too many people’s stories, and as a result the production lacked focus and left all the characters feeling very underdeveloped. I was unable to develop an emotional connection to any of the characters and left with very little understanding of any of their backstories and what was supposed to be represented through each character.
The show casts a scary mirror on the current political climate, and it was harrowing to hear comments about groups of people not being safe, and the recounting of events that are still taking place today. The line ‘it’s not our fight, none of us are Jews’ felt like a particular punch in the gut, as a Jewish audience member who regularly feels as though the rest of the world think exactly that.
White Rose has a huge amount of potential, and especially in today's day and age it is absolutely essential that we keep telling these stories through any medium possible, but sadly I don’t believe that this particular production did justice to such a powerful and important story.
You can book tickets to see White Rose: The Musical, here.
Review by Rachel
**photo credit: Marc Brenner**
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