Is it true? - ‘You can’t find love in London’

Arts & Entertainment

By Gloria Peters

The Musical - You Can’t Find Love In London would readily quiz a visitor to London but would it cause the same sentiments and possibly more from a resident? It is perhaps the implication(s) of what this thought occasions that may have caused the Musical's Director - Rolake Adesina to pen the play. It serves well a clear indication that it is a play that would appeal to a section of the city – those whose ages and circumstance put them within the borders of consequential romance and nuptial ties.

What would, perhaps make the sentential title, more relevant is the notion that more and more younger people shy away from the intoxication of love if it is cash-backed (topical). This prompts the question that challenges the value of love in a relationship so much so that other influences flounder ‘when money sprouts like a fountain, the water at the base turns cold’.

Why the Director would also play this as a musical becomes very debatable. Perhaps the playwriting and directing were supposed to experiment with innovating on presenting lyrically, issues that would have contended with the many facets of an emerging concept of love being served the society by the Gen Zee if we take into consideration the youthfulness of the players and the use of rap as a musical genre. In fact, at different scenes of dialogue, the rap value appears merged with a spoken word delivery. While this could serve a challenge in oscillating the flow of movement of the play, the quasi-musical tinge also waters down the value of the rap interplay in debating the ups and downs of romantic conceptions and avenues in a cosmopolitan setting; except, of course, if you are a lover of rap style music and/or Gen Zee.

As the play is unveiled, the audience is at once entertained to lyrics in rap and spoken word style. While this does well to justify the expectation of a strong musical flavour, this is not sustained. By the third scene, the strength of musical expectation had fizzled into an underlay of an instrumental rhythm. But did this really rhyme to the drift of poetic and lyrical conversation?

So why did the director choose the medium to explicate such a mundane and debate-inciting subject? This can only best be answered if one were to see the play itself from curtains open to curtains drawn. Only then can the theatre enthusiast walk away with a version suited to one’s interpretation of the performance.

The dating scene in a restaurant crystalises the essence the play and presents mercenary interests which bothers on self-centredness and if ever there is such a love as can be described as commercial love – Zone 3. 

Directorially, there is also that bit that raises sufficient query to determine if the script could have been radically different from the performance?  A theatre eye would probably be led to this when the play’s title, simply adopted, leads to a stream of inquest which appear not to be best exploited in the interest of the audience. But one cannot fault the brilliance of clips of dialogue which make statements but can be developed better into threads, possibly of cause and effect, or the intricacies of subtly but deviant plot, etc. It is possible that this could enrich the play and its direction. At the same time, the import of the rap and spoken word style may be less featured. And that is why it could be quite revealing to feel the soul of the play in the text and its mimesis in performance.

The cast of ‘seven Londoners’ all seemed to be at home with the vehicle of interpreting the play and were well cut for the rap and spoken word. However, their acting talents were largely subsumed for the stage mannerisms of a rapper in performance losing some of the quintessential dramatic high and lows of human genuine expression revealed in faces, body language, the evocation of emotion which tone of voice betrays.

The largely youthful audience were in good flow with the performance as there were a few rounds of applause, laughter, and the occasional cat-call. Whether these were for the essence of the play or the generational trend of musical understanding is indeterminable. While the night supplied its pleasures, it is not entirely clear why you can’t find love in London because one is further unclear what type of love one should value; Gen Zee style?

Rolake is a London-based Writer, Director and Producer whose work spans stage and screen with bold, lyrical storytelling at its core. A graduate with a Master’s in Film with Practice from the University of Kent, she is the Founder of Scene-opsis Productions – the creative force behind the Musical.