"Rent" by Jonathan Larson

Medics Musical

Nottingham Arts Theatre.

“Rent” tells the story of a year in the life of a group of impoverished young artists struggling to survive and create a life in New York City's East Village in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS and is loosely based on Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème.

It is set in the East Village of New York City, and is also about falling in love, finding your voice and living for today.

The physical and emotional complications of HIV and Aids pervade the lives of Roger, Mimi, Tom, and Angel. Maureen deals with her chronic infidelity through performance art; her partner, Joanne, wonders if their relationship is worth the trouble.

Benny has sold out his Bohemian ideals in exchange for a hefty income. Mark, an aspiring filmmaker, feels like an outsider to life in general. How these young bohemians negotiate their dreams, loves, and conflicts provides the narrative thread to the musical.

Most people may have heard the song “Seasons Of Love” but the soundtrack is full of catchy memorable songs like “Light My Candle”, “Take Me Or Leave Me”, “La Vie Boheme”, "Out Tonight", "I'll Cover You", "One Song Glory", "Santa Fe" as well as the title song.

Before the play started there was an announcement to say that there have been no changes to the script and that they were performing the show as written by Jonathan Larson; this is also backed up in the programme, which was only available via scanning a QR Code. Unfortunately my phone/brick would not scan the code but I have several lovely pictures of a QR Code. My bad!

That statement is not quite accurate, as when Larson wrote the musical, and every version of "Rent" that I have ever seen has had a male actor playing Angel. In this version Angel is played by a female actor; anyone seeing the musical for the first time may only have had an inkling that Angel is a drag queen is when she mentions that Collins and Angel were "brothers"; if that were missed, part of this story would also be missed or misunderstood.

The song "Seasons Of Love" starts with the lyrics "Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes". This could very nearly apply to the amount of cast members in the ensemble; there were loads! Some of the songs have been turned into ensemble numbers, which for me did not work, sorry. Scenes with songs with the main characters were often swamped in a circle of dancers, like some Buzby Berkeley film, and that, for me not only hid the main characters but detracted from main scenes.

Counting up the cast members from the back of the programme, I counted seventy-nine.

I know that this theatre group are incredibly popular and all the members probably wanted a part but in parts of this musical, less is more where members are concerned.

Scene changes also took a long time, and when I say a long time, ten to fifteen seconds with a darkened stage is a long time. Possibly having large ensembles to clear from the stage between scenes could possibly slow down the scene changes.

With that negativity out of the way, let me get to the positivity because I can see that there has been a lot of hard work put into this production.

Roger Davis is a guitarist with a dark past, who eventually falls for Mimi after her early attempts to light his candle, by asking him to light hers! Roger is played by Hassan Akram. Hassan has a really good voice combining power and range. He can perform a song with passion, not just sing a song.

Mark Cohen, who is the musical's narrator, loves to make movies on his video camera - mobile phones with cameras were not available at the time so things called camcorders were used. Mark is trying to find his way in the world and is played by Ben Hughes. Another young actor who has a really good voice who can harmonise well, blending in with several of the actors' voices. Loved the duet "Tango Maureen" with Daisy.

Benny Coffin III is played by Jack Newby. Billy used to live in the building with Roger and Mark, but has since gone up in the world and now owns the building and it's he who is chasing for the rent. Towards the end though he shows a softer side.

Tom Collins is played by Harry Drew. Now, vocally Harry has a very distinctive voice which I personally love, Sounding like Brad Roberts from the Canadian band Crash Test Dummies, even in the ensemble numbers, I could spot his vocals, and in the solo numbers his soul came through. There are a couple of emotional scenes with Tom and Angel and these are played well by both.

Mimi Marquezis played wonderfully by Nikita Patil. As soon as she opened her mouth to sing, I just knew that I would love her interpretation of Mimi, and I did. Nikita has one of those silky smooth voices that can soothe the savage breast of any reviewer.

Angel Schunard is played by Charlotte Parker. Now Angel has AIDS and helps Tom after he is mugged, which is where their relationship starts.

Maureen Johnson is played by Daisy Porter, and Daisy showed that she does not need a microphone with her voice. there is power in Daisy's vocals, so much so that possibly a reduction in the mic level as they, at times overpowered Kira's. A technical tweak to bring the levels more into balance, methinks, but watch out Mariah Carey! I also noticed that the cow mooing at the end of her stage performance was not included, which I always found a bit weird, but then again Maureen's stage show is pretty weird. As it's supposed to be.

Joanne Jefferson is played by Kira Hyde. I have seen some performances of Rent where the sexuality is overly overt between Maureen and Joanne; in this performance, I think just the right level of sexuality was applied. Then again both Kira and Daisy are very attractive women so natural attractiveness comes naturally for both characters. Again, a lovely set of vocals from Kira.

Directed by Jack Newby, assisted by Laba Imran. I can only admire the hard work of any Director, and when you are on stage as a main character, being the Director may mean that some things may not be noticed, like the time taken in between scenes; something the Stage Managers need to tighten up.

Choreographed by Chrissie Allan, and there is an awful lot of choreography in "Rent" and for an awful lot of actors. Love the choreography for "La Vie Boheme" which isn't easy using the table as a prop and dance stage and also "Tango Maureen", whcih did not go for the rigid tango choreography, as this made it a more natural and friendly tango.

Musical Director is Ash Baskar and Conductor is Ryan Latham. The five piece band sounded so much bigger but sounded brilliant all the same.

Sound Design was also really good; only a few missed mic cues but it's because the volume of people on stage that highlighted any missed cue. That aside it was lovely and gutsy and clear with a good sound mix.

Lighting Design for the show was brilliant. There seemed to be more lights on stage with this production, or it may be that I sat in a different place to normal, so noticed more of the lights. A great fun feel to the uptempo numbers and the intimate sections were lit accordingly.

Ok, so I have had a few negative remarks, and the critic in critique very rarely rears it's ugly head too often, but I know what the standards are for this theatre group, so I feel that any criticism will be taken in the spirit it was written. That said, it's a great story, a brilliant soundtrack, which was delivered with energy and passion by a hard working cast. With a little tightening up, this show is going to be another sold out local theatre production.

"Rent" is being performed at the Nottingham Arts Theatre until Saturday 4 March