Barista The Musical – Capitol Theatre, Horsham

Barista The Musical was reviewed at the Capitol Theatre, Horsham.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

As the famed Glitterball descends on BBC TV for series 22 of Strictly Come Dancing, one of its former professional champions, Pasha Kovalev, takes the choreographic helm of Barista The Musical, a new show written by husband and wife team Nigel and Anna Newman and produced at Capitol Theatre, Horsham.

Its central character, Isabella Sanchez, leaves Colombia on a scholarship to pursue university studies in England, a scenario that will resonate with many new students given the coincidence of this production run with the start of the UK academic year. Isabella soon meets Andy Scott, owner of a small independent café struggling financially in a world of coffee shop chains, and they fall in love, a little too effortlessly even by musical theatre standards.

But the past from which Isabella (or ‘Bella’, as she is affectionately known to friends) is running continues to haunt her, and the plot intensifies in Act II when she returns to her mother country, pursued by Andy, to confront her demons. All roads seem to lead inevitably back to Colombia as the disparate threads of the plot weave ingeniously together, leading to a climax as dramatic as it is replete with shock revelations.

The show’s original story, although lacking the familiarity of many musicals based on films or books, is nonetheless easy to follow, even as it moves freely between 1980s and 1990s Colombia and late noughties England, to enable Isabella’s past to be revealed in flashbacks. This non-linearity is facilitated by helpful surtitling such that the year and location of a given scene is always indicated to the audience member, even witnessing a three-year passage of time taking place during one early song.

Sara Bartos, who is of Colombian descent herself, demonstrates remarkable stamina as Isabella, seeming a fraction overworked at times given the extent to which she forms the focal point of the show. George Crawford’s Andy is a loyal companion to Isabella and they make an adorable onstage couple, but despite Crawford’s obvious talent he is not given quite the same opportunities to shine.

Laura Tyrer presents a suitably posh, pushy and presumptuous businesswoman as the show’s antagonist, Vanessa. While we can tell that she spells trouble for our young heroine from the first time she appears onstage, we cannot anticipate how devious she will become, nor who is really pulling her strings. Colleen Daley as café regular and family friend Sue, a supporting character for much of the show, proves she can really entertain an audience when afforded the chance (alas all too infrequently) to take centre stage.

Nigel and Anna Newman’s score, well-executed under Patrick Rufey’s musical direction, is upbeat and catchy, and the composers resist the temptation to underscore a story about a Colombian expat with a consistently Latin American idiom. Notwithstanding the serious subject matter, involving murder and the terrorising of Isabella’s family by a criminal business partner, the Newmans’ script nonetheless maintains an air of light-heartedness to counterbalance all the drama. The wit inherent in Sarah Redmond’s direction is more subtle in places, one of the more transparent strategies being the use of a show-stopping, fourth-wall-breaking guitarist to dispel the tension.

The show arguably trades on the name of its famous choreographer, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but audiences should not expect it to be jam-packed with big glitzy dance routines à la Strictly by virtue of Kovalev’s involvement. The more visually spectacular numbers, executed with panache by six dancers and almost exclusively in the Colombian scenes, elicit particularly enthusiastic audience responses, and avid Strictly viewers will no doubt recognise the familiar steps of dances such as samba and Argentine tango – but with such a small cast, this choreography lacks the volume and intensity of the glitzy television show itself.

With its percolating combination of engaging story, captivating score and stimulating choreography, the professional debut of Barista The Musical serves up a delicious cup of entertainment, blending coffee and cultural crossover in a delectable theatrical caffeine fix.

Christopher Wiley