REVIEW: FOR THE LACK OF LAURA by Kurt Rosenberg at Shaw Theatre, King’s Cross until 2 August 2025
‘Sumptuously mounted’ ★★★1/2
Something of a curio, this one, a romantic musical in which an Irish woman travels through time and space to find true love. Production values are very high, with an excellent 16-piece orchestra nicely visible behind a simple set featuring a high promontory and audio-visual support to locate us in time and all over the world.
A strong cast of 12, beautifully costumed with frequent changes, and three dozen thoroughly singable songs heavily inflected with harp and flute. Sumptuously mounted, then, but if there's a gap in the production it sits with a story that does't quite support the surrounding splendour.
Laura is a spirited colleen (the Oirishry of the plotting and score are catching), and we find her in her small rural home, in search of love and adventure. Until Gwenda the sorceress (think pantomime villain) offers her a Faustian bargain – immortality and travel and the capacity to entrance any man, but the curse that all those things pass on to the object of your affection as soon as you fall in love.
Laura’s travels take her far and wide, a narcissistic Spanish matador here, a workaholic Russian dancer there, the latter two’s performances among the show’s many high points. In the end, she’ll find what she desires in a peaceful, thoughtful man. Meantime, the friend she’s left at home while she roams the universe is proving that none of all that malarkey’s at all necessary if you can find true love on your own doorstep, in a nicely comic (and scene-stealing) counterpart to the main narrative.
It’s all a lot of fun, with strong if not particularly memorable songs. The story itself doesn’t ultimately add up to much – Laura finds true love. Even so, its details can be hard to follow at times, not least as a plot carried entirely in song requires crystal clear singing and diction (the Vicar Laura meets provides a fabulous example to some of the cast of how to make every word ring), but the visuals and movement and energy are top-notch, particularly among the backing dancers who catch the eye every time they arrive.
The staging’s simple and inventive, though the slightly repetitive section where Laura meets five successive men in five different locations and five different times could do with a bit more variety in the staging and direction (the cleverly designed audio-visuals are used a little pedestrianly here – the fifth time the planets re-align, the point really has been hit home).
And the whole thing’s entirely good natured – the eventually spurned lovers are funny rather than tragic, the songs repeatedly uplifting, the finale satisfying.
Photography: Brigid Vinnell
FOR THE LACK OF LAURA by Kurt Rosenberg
Directed by Luke Morgan
Shaw Theatre, King’s Cross 24 July to 2 August 2025
Box Office: https://shaw-theatre.com/whats-on/for-the-lack-of-laura
Reviewer David Weir’s plays include Confessional (Oran Mor, Glasgow) and Better Together (Jack Studio, Brockley, London). Those and others performed across Scotland, Wales and England, and in Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium. Awards include Write Now Festival prize, Constance Cox award, SCDA best depiction of Scottish life, and twice Bruntwood longlisted.
