Song and strife

Without You is a show that requires a bit of prior explanation. However, if you’re a gay jobless thesp living in New York in 1994, and your Mom’s dying of cancer back home in Illinois, and you’ve landed a role in Rent, a new musical about Aids, then you’re already up to speed. You have all the data required. In fact, you’re probably Anthony Rapp, the author of this musical autobiography which has just arrived from Edinburgh.

Rapp tells two tales through narrative and song. First we hear about Rent which, you may be aware, is a smash-hit musical based on La bohème and relocated to New York during the HIV epidemic. This house-move intensifies its kitsch morbidity by a factor of about a thousand. Rent is an epic cheek-streamer, a duct-dripping sob-fest, a mawkish deluge of grief and anguish. (I refer to the storyline, by the way. The melodies are soaring little miracles of tuneful wonderment.)