Writer and Composer: Kurt Rosenberg
Director: Luke Morgan
Writing and producing an original full-length musical is a mammoth undertaking, and anyone who pulls it off deserves credit.
For the Lack of Laura is a 140-minute journey through the eyes of a young Irish woman searching for love across space and time, thanks to a curse placed on her by an evil sorceress. With a cast of 16, large-scale LCD screens, and a live orchestra, money has clearly been spent — no small feat in today’s theatre landscape. After premiering in Galway, the show ran for a week in Malvern before transferring to London’s Shaw Theatre, where it runs until 2nd August.
So far, so promising.
It opens with company credits on the LCD screens set to a pre-recorded track, despite the presence of a capable band onstage who could easily have played it live. What follows is two hours of safe, tepid orchestrations, set against a storyline that makes little sense.
Our lead character is said to be from “the distant past,” which is hard enough to pin down, but made more confusing when she’s dressed like a medieval peasant yet lives among immersion heaters and hardback books. When she meets a sorceress – who has some vague history with her father – she’s offered a choice: stay as she is, or gain the ability to travel through time and find the perfect lover. The catch? She’ll be immortal while she searches, but once she settles down, she’ll become mortal, and her lover becomes immortal. Make of that what you will.
She accepts and begins her journey, though “time travel” seems to mean roughly 150 years. Along the way, she meets a bullfighter, a dancer, a writer, a painter, and a vicar. The first four are about as uncharismatic as stereotypes allow, and yet she desperately chases love with each of them, despite having all the time in the world. Her scenes (in fact, all of Laura’s material) feel like they were written without a female perspective. She’s a character only a man could write.
The music doesn’t do her any favours either. It’s perfectly competent, but so safe it barely registers. Songs come and go without leaving a mark.
The performers commit fully, their energy and professionalism are never in doubt, but the material gives them little to work with. In contrast, the production elements shine: the visuals are slick, the orchestra polished, the technical execution near flawless. It’s a curious contradiction, a ruby red apple with a rotten core.
The show bills itself as “a production you won’t soon forget.” Unfortunately, that’s true — just not for the right reasons.
Runs until 2 August 2025
