Stiletto

Visually beautiful, Stiletto tells the story of a young castrato in 18th Century Venice seeking a patron - along the way he meets a half-cast young woman with a wonderful voice, but at the time, the Pope banned women from singing on the stage - hence the 'market' for young castrated boys with their pure treble voices. In trying to introduce his new friend to his patron and her entourage a cardinal is accidentally killed and she is accused of the murder. Spoiler alert - it all work out ok in the end!

The large cast work hard to sell the show and are mostly very successful - along with some beautiful singing there are some excellent characterisations and moments of both comedy and pathos. I particularly enjoyed Greg Barnett's Faustino and Sam Barrett's Luigi and I found the relationship between Kelly Hampson's Azurra and Douglas Hansell's Pietro worked well.

A few of the cast still need to get to fully inhabit their characters and I personally found the direction a little clumsy in places with scene changes often stealing the pace but these issus didn't detract massively from what was an enjoyable evening of theatre. Was it worth driving up from Cornwall to see? I would have to say yes, yes it was! I even came out humming one of the tunes ... not bad for a first hearing ...