That Bastard Puccini! By James Inverne. Park 200, 13 Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 until 9 August 2025, 3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: David Monteith-Hodge.

That Bastard Puccini! By James Inverne. Park 200, 13 Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 until 9 August 2025,

3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Bitter rivalry.”

Both Giacomo Puccini and his contemporary Ruggiero Leoncavallo composed operas based on Scenes from Bohmenian Life by Henry Murger with Puccini more or less stealing the idea after which the pair embarked on an attempt to get their version staged first. It was a battle between a composer who was prolific and became regarded as the greatest composer of opera of his generation and a one hit wonder.  Leoncavallo composed several operas but his one major success was Pagliacci and that was as half of a double bill with Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana. Puccini was first in 1896 with his La Boheme staged in Turin, although it was not a success. Leoncavallo's version was staged in Venice at the Fenice the following year when, to his horror, so was a second staging of the Puccini opera – and this time it was a hit going on to send Leoncavallo's one to oblivion.

The war of the Bohemes has been turned into a very funny play by James Inverne and the performances of Sebastian Torkia as Puccini and Alasdair Buchan as Leoncavallo are full of life but somewhere along the course of the evening it all starts to ring contrived and the anachronisms, especially when we get one man, the taunting, assured of his celebrity Puccini, telling the other about things yet to happen, start to undercut the story. It is about what it is like to be pretty good at what you do except that somebody else does it better, you know it and there seems nothing you can do about it. The cast of three switch characters throughout with Lisa-Anne Wood, who plays Leoncavallo's wife Berthe and more as well as singing rather splendidly some arias adding to the mix. Both men also perform some of what they have composed on the grand piano. In a way Inverne has been too clever by half in the way he has constructed the story he has to tell – the result is a bit of a curate's egg of a play. But it is one worth catching simply because of the story it tells about how it is to be good at what you do but surpassed by someone who does it better.

Cast

Sebastian Torka – Puccini

Alastair Buchan – Leoncavallo

Lisa-Anne Wood – Berthe

Creatives

Director – Daniel Slater

Set & Costume Designer – Carly Brownbridge

Lighting Designer – Katy Morison

Sound Designer – Yvonne Gilbert

Musical Director – Tim Murray