Review: You & It, King’s Head Theatre

There’s no doubt that Korean culture captures the current zeitgeist. London is full of Korean restaurants, K-pop bands dominate the charts, and somewhere, Squid Games is being played. Now adding to the Korean cultural mix comes a new musical at The King’s Head, You & It, that’s incredibly current as it’s about artificial intelligence, which is also having something of a moment. 

It’s 2034, and Mina (Francis Mayli McCann) and Gyujin (Zachary Pang) are living in paradise – the very first song tells you so. She’s a ceramic artist, pregnant with their first child, and he works with metal in his foundry. All is perfect until Mina goes out for some shopping and is killed by a car. Gyujin is bereft until a doctor at the hospital tells him that Mina can be recreated as a robot using AI with all of Mina’s memories and personality – what could go wrong?  That’s the premise behind You & It. It’s an intriguing idea and, on paper at least, one with plenty of dramatic potential. Sadly, the execution is rather less successful. 

It is not difficult to see where this is going. Can a machine really replace the person you loved? Is a collection of memories the same thing as a human being? And if something looks, sounds and behaves like the person you lost, does it matter that there’s something not quite right? At just 80 minutes without an interval, it should be an economical, emotionally punchy piece of musical theatre; instead, the pacing is surprisingly sluggish, and the dramatic development often feels quite laboured. 

The music, by Q Lee, has some pleasant moments but much of the score is curiously samey; the dominance of a cello in a four-piece band means that a lot of the songs are ballads and sound mournful in a minor key. There are numbers that begin promisingly before drifting into blandness, whilst Ricky Allan’s lyrics can sometimes sound awkward rather than lyrical. And there are lots of songs – sixteen of them in total, which means there isn’t much for Seoeun Oh, the book writer, to get his teeth into.

Esther Jun’s direction has some attractive touches, but there are too many blackouts and transitions that interrupt rather than enhance the flow. Bob Sterrett and Lu Herbert’s design of a Korean home makes imaginative use of the King’s Head space, and Jonathan Chan’s lighting also produces the occasional striking image effect. There’s an odd moment when Gyujin has to restart Mina’s heart (do robots need a heart?) using what looks like Victorian plumbing! Pang brings sincerity to Gyujin, and there are moments when his grief genuinely connects. McCann, has the considerably trickier task of making a robot feel real. There are flashes when the central relationship becomes truly touching, but at times their singing voices seem to clash rather than mesh. 

The central concept is certainly timely, and the emotional territory is fertile. However, good ideas do not automatically make for a good musical. It’s a very worthy and interesting take on a subject that seems to be causing controversy everywhere at the moment, but it just doesn’t come together – maybe it’s something the writers can feed into ChatGPT (other AI chatbots are available) and fix?  

There is certainly nothing wrong with asking whether a machine can have a soul – it just doesn’t feel that You & It has quite found its own.

Directed by Esther Jun
Music by Q Lee
Book by Seoeun Oh
Lyrics by Ricky Allan
Musical Direction by Amy Hsu
Design by Bob Sterrett & Lu Herbert
Costume Design by Lu Herbert
Lighting Design by Jonathan Chan
Sound Design by Adrienne Quartly
Movement Direction by Yojiro Ichikawa

You & It plays at The King’s Head Theatre until Saturday 26 September.