Cadogan Hall – 28 February 2022
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
2**
The gala concert and UK premiere of Mimma raised funds for a worthwhile charity, so that’s a positive to take from the night. Unfortunately, the show itself is a muddled, unsatisfying mess.
Ron Siemiginowski and Giles Watson’s desire to raise awareness of the internment of enemy aliens in the UK during WW2, and the sinking of the Arandora Star carrying deported aliens to Canada is admirable, but there is no coherent structure or emotional integrity in this show.
Mimma and her family run a publication campaigning against Mussolini, but when Mimma is identified by the black shirts, her brother decides to send her to London to stay with her uncle Lorenzo. Lorenzo runs a nightclub in Soho, and is a naive member of the Italian Club, which Mimma is horrified to see is a front for the fascists. In Lorenzo’s club, Mimma meets Sarah, a singer whose boyfriend is in the navy, and they bond quickly. As her brother and friends back in Turin are captured by the black shirts, Italians in the UK are rounded up and placed in camps.
All extremely dramatic, and the writers’ not so subtle musical themes make it very clear where the audience should be FEELING THINGS. The swing music that characterises the London scenes contrasts with the ever more operatic Turin scenes, and it begins to feel as if these are two separate shows that have been cobbled together. The libretto doesn’t help, with banal lyrics describing wartime London that would not seem out of place in a school project. At least the opera parts are in Italian so any cringeworthy lyrics went over my head. There is no discipline to the songs either, with some being interminably long and others just tapering off suddenly.
Even the talent of Celinde Schoenmaker, Louise Dearman, John Owen-Jones and the BBC Concert Orchestra can’t save this. They all perform impeccably but deserve better material. Elena Xanthoudakis and Ashley Riches also sing magnificently. David Suchet adds gravitas as Alfredo Frassati, narrating the semi-staged show and adding lots of exposition, but by the time heroic deeds of espionage are revealed in the epilogue, the feeling that you have been repeatedly whacked on the head with a history book numbs you.
Mimma is a huge disappointment and in need of rigorous revision and workshops if it is ever to become a musical that truly honours this dark moment in history.