Marie Curie – A New Musical

The Charing Cross Theatre should be commended for bringing into the West End musicals that we might not otherwise get to see. Like Les Miserables or Titanic, the first challenge is that the subject matter is well known so we are expecting to be taken to dark places, the second challenge is how do you keep an audience captivated – when you think you know where the story is going.

It soon becomes clear that the writer of the musical Seeun Choun has become driven to tell the story of Marie Curie – and that drive comes through in the music of Jongyoon Choi. As the creatives names perhaps suggest this musical has come from Asian parenting, with initial try-out performances in Seoul, development in Shanghai and licensed performances in Japan.

Marie Curie, was a great Polish scientist and this is an internationally developed musical.

Charing Cross Theatre has the ability to play in the round or with a pros-arch. For this show we find ourselves in the traditional seating (pros-arch) configuration. Sight lines are excellent. We enter the auditorium and see Irene Curie (played by Lucy Young) frantically search through various papers on the stage. What is she looking for? As the house lights dim we are soon to find out – as she discovers her mother, Marie’s, journal and last will and testament. The relatively small stage is used well, with moving trucks that move us seamlessly from laboratory to factory to award ceremonies. Projections bring us closer to Marie and we see journal entries in her own hand.

The journal transports us back to 1891 when Marie, a young Polish woman is on her way to study at Sorbonne University in Paris – the first woman to do so, with all the prejudice of the day. It’s on the train she meets Anne Kowalska (Chrissie Bhima) a woman who will become a friend – and in the end a victim of Marie’s discoveries. Marie is driven by the belief that there should be/ can be a map of everything. She is determined to fill in one of imagined gaps on the Periodic Table – we find out over the following 1 hour 40 minutes that she will actually discover two new elements.

The musical itself contains many of the elements of 21st century musical theatre. Powerful numbers and large chunks of sung through recitative that drive the story along over the top of a surprising variety of driving rhythmic patterns and styles. The most powerful songs are given to Chrissie Bhima who commands the stage and should be commended. All this supported by an excellent sound design (thanks to Oscar Cotran and Drew Jameson) not a word is lost. Sadly the challenge of telling the amazing story of a woman who changed medicine means a lot of history needs to be covered in a short time leaving me as a member of the audience somewhat unmoved, by the tragedy of it all it feels like I should be in floods of tears – but I am not.

All in all, there are some great performances telling the story of a driven woman – but, where as I have long said you can write a musical about almost anything – some feel like a good night at the theatre and some a great night. Marie Curie the musical is a good night at the theatre with educational benefits – which I hope Marie would have approved of, although I doubt she would have commended such frivolous activities when there was science to be done!

This show was reviewed on the 7th June 2024 at the Charing Cross Theatre where it runs until the 28th July 2024.  Tickets available here: Charing Cross Theatre

*** 1/2 stars

Paul Wood

Join Paul every Wednesday and Friday from 3pm for ‘The Afternoon Show’ here on Box Office Radio

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Photo credit: Pamela Raith