A wonderful way of bringing more unknown stories to light is through theatre. Burnt Lemon Theatre have done this with the story of Tokyo Rose.

An American woman, of Japanese heritage finds herself under the fire for treason in a case of mistaken identity, tricks and conspiracies. Burnt Lemon Theatre, through musical storytelling, bring us the story of this woman, from early life to the trial.

Not the biggest of musical fans, I have in the past be pleasantly surprised and converted. Unfortunately, Tokyo Rose does not do this for me. With musicals, some involve moments of script to break up the music, and some are back to back songs. With Tokyo Rose, this is more of the latter and it feels a little as if we need a break to take in the information. It feels quite full on.

What cannot be argued in how much the performers put into their series of characters, the choreography and singing itself. It is pristine, well formulated and executed with 110%. There are times that the singing is slightly off – throwing in quite often what I would call a ‘Mariah Carey’ flare; this over the top harmony that does not quite hit the right notes and could really be done without.

Unfortunately, Tokyo Rose was just not my cup of tea. Bringing such an important and not well known story to the forefront in this way is entirely commendable, and the performers are obviously very talented and bringing their all to the production. I really wanted to like it more – an all-female production bringing the injustice of a woman in the 1930’s/40s in a story missed slightly by time – it just missed the mark and did not seem to gel well with a musical approach.