Broken Wings London Reviews and Tickets

72%

(10 Reviews)

Positive

70%

Mixed

20%

Negative

10%

Members say

Absorbing, Clever, Great singing, Slow, Enchanting

About the Show

Katie Lipson's musical adaptation of Kahlil Gibran's poetic book.

Set in 1920s New York City, an aging Gibran transports the audience back two decades and across continents, to turn-of-the-century Beirut. Gibran meets Selma; their connection is instant and their love affair, fated. However, their journey to happiness is soon thrown off course.

Performed in-the-round, 'Broken Wings' explores gender equality, immigration, sexuality, and what 'home' really means.

Member Reviews (10)

Entertaining, Enchanting, Delightful, Clever, Absorbing

See it if Some cracking original songs Enjoy life stories Enjoy musicals

Don't see it if Don’t enjoy musicals

Great singing, Dated, Slow, Quirky, Intense

See it if Fascinating insight into the life of Gibran

Don't see it if Story is slow and songs lack oomph.

100

Great singing, Great acting, Exquisite, Enchanting, Absorbing

See it if You want to see the most beautiful show I've even seen! It's trully magical, tiny theatre but the set is stunning and acting phenomenal!

Don't see it if You're not ready to be broken into pieces and left sobbing your eyes out. The story is heartbreaking but beautiful.

Disappointing, Indulgent, Overrated, Slow

See it if If you love more classical musicals.

Don't see it if If you want something modern with memorable music.

Interesting, Absorbing, Clever

See it if You love the novel and want to see an exciting new musical

Don't see it if If you find it hard to follow storylines as in some points was confusing

Fluffy, Disappointing, Clever, Quirky, Slow

See it if you like close intimate performances.

Don't see it if you want to see something that will blow your socks off or leave you wanting to see it again.

Riveting, Great singing, Absorbing

See it if You like well performed and beautifully sung plays about real people: Khalil Gebran, a forgotten poet.

Don't see it if You don't like to have the story told mostly in song.

Great writing, Enchanting, Clever

See it if enjoy good storytelling and creative staging.

Don't see it if you like a lot of acting and less songs in a musical. Most of the story is told in songs except for a quite long part in the beginning.

Critic Reviews (5)

Despite being dramatically undernourished as a piece of theatre, the unique combination of bombast and delicacy in the music lingers long in the heart and mind afterwards. I suspect it'll divide people, but that its most staunch supporters will be vociferous.
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The singing is sometimes glorious...The pointlessly revolving stage, however, only emphasises the basic problem: this circuitous tale doesn’t really go anywhere.
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Lagan’s direction and indeed Erika Gundusen’s tight musical direction tries hard to counter the awkward pacing of the story and, to an extent, it works. However, Broken Wings is a promising musical that seems to still be in the fixing stage rather than the finished product.
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What emerges is a musical that, in its desire to stay true to its source material's themes and honour Gibran's enlightened approach to women's agency in a patriarchal world, has lost too much of the impetus, the light and shade, that a show with ambitions like this one requires.
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Naaman’s score, co-composed with Dana Al Fardan, is best when it’s unabashedly romantic and there’s a particularly handsome swell to the young love song, Here in This Garden. But there’s not a huge amount of variety to the music and surprisingly little of the unique sounds or rhythms of the Middle East.
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Trailer

Creative team