In what you might think is a new show about Brexit, Leave to Remain at the Lyric Hammersmith is actually a “modern love story with music”. The story follows Obi (Tyrone Huntley) as he agrees to marry his boyfriend Alex (Billy Cullum) in a bid to ensure he is able to stay in the UK as his work is relocating and they control his visa. What we learn along the way is that both have secret pasts that they try to hide from one another and families that they bash heads with.
The components of this production fail to deliver.
What this show does is set conventions to start with, which we follow and agree to as an audience, but then breaks them. Tyrone sings the majority of the score for a good portion of the beginning, making us think this is an interesting devise which justifies the choice of genre. However when everyone starts to chime in we lose that and realise that this is in fact a poorly written musical with no idea what its trying to be.
