INDIGO at Curve Leicester Review
The cast of INDIGO. Photo by Manuel Harlan
Written by Hollie for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review
This production contains: infrequent strong language, smoke/haze, flashing lights and scenes that some customers may find upsetting. INDIGO is centred around characters in the show living with Alzheimer’s, Autism and Synaesthesia.
With the sound of crashing waves, buzzing telephones and dogs barking as you enter the Studio Theatre at Leicester’s Curve, your senses are immediately immersed within this story of colours, feelings and connections.
This remarkable new musical comes to Curve from author Kait Kerrigan and is conceived by Jay Kuo, Lorenzo Thione and Scott Evan Davis, in collaboration with The Human Race Theatre Company. It’s not just any new musical; Indigo is a feast for the senses.
The opening number, “Color of Home,” sets the tone beautifully. Accompanied by vibrant rainbow projections that are overlaid across the scenery, creates a sense of calm and safety. This thoughtful and heartwarming show invites the audience to reflect on how different colours evoke different emotions — a theme that resonates throughout.
Indigo explores the intricacies and sensitive subjects of non-verbal autism and Alzheimer's disease. Carefully interwoven with a lovely blend of impressive music and ordinary environmental sounds, this musical explores these themes and real-life struggles through the eyes of the characters that are experiencing them, and through the dialogue or non-verbal communication they have with each other.
Visually, Indigo is stunning. From the outset, the audience is completely captivated by the visuals and scenery provided on stage by Set and Video Designer Andrzej Goulding. His use of the space and his imagination provides the audience with compelling and developmental visuals which constantly alter the backdrop of the stage and adapt to the character in focus at the time.
On entering the theatre, you often wonder whether a musical that contains themes such as these is purely a token gesture; however, this production has been carefully and intricately thought out the whole way through. The messages and themes are creatively explored and told by the characters themselves. A delicate and sensitive casting process was also carried out prior to the production, and members of the cast and crew themselves are neuro-divergent.
The use of all colours in the rainbow is explored and provides the audience with the perspectives and feelings of the different characters. Each character is represented by their own colour, and it really gets you thinking about which colour would represent you and why.
At the opening of the show, the living room and home are the colour grey, and everything is boring and a bit drab. Adding colour and her quirky touches to her new home is Lisa Maxwell as Elaine, who has come to live with her daughter Beverly and her husband Rick, who have decided to take Elaine in and look after her after her recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis. She adds a splash of pink and a reminder about love and family relationships as she gets used to her new surroundings and invites other people into the mix.
Katie Cailean plays sixteen-year-old rainbow-wearing teenager Emma in this production, which is her professional stage debut. Katie is impeccable as Emma. Not only is she a great singer, but she is also able to capture the mannerisms and behaviours that are typical of a neuro-divergent teenager. Katie’s duet ‘Out of the Blue’ with Rebecca Trehearn as Beverly is particularly poignant. Equally poignant and emotional is her duet ‘Permanent’ with Nuno Queimado who plays Rick.
Those particular songs as well as many others within the production have stayed with me since I left the theatre. Musical director Scott Evan Davis has created a wonderful blend of catchy, upbeat and energetic songs as well as emotional and imaginative tracks which catch your breath and make you pause and think. Every song adds to the story and provides the accompanying dialogue and actions with meaning.
The cast are equally as talented as each other, and I enjoyed the light relief and laugh out loud moments that you get from Nuno’s character, the green wearing husband of Beverly, Rick. The different characters react and behave differently around each other depending on who is in the scene, and I found this particularly clever. Hugo Rolland, who plays Tyler, bounds into the show with his comics and yellow t-shirts, and just like the colour, he brings happiness and sunshine to the family’s life.
Alicia, played by Tania Mathurin, plays the friendly and realistic social worker dressed in various shades of orange who brings both perspective and belief to the family’s ever changing circumstances.
There is so much to take in in different ways, whether it be visually stunning sets and costumes, the movement on the stage or the auditory signals you hear throughout the evening, I feel that this musical needs to be seen more than once. I also believe that different people watching will notice different things from each other. Will you see the world the way that Emma does?
Without an interval, it can be really hard to hold an audience’s attention for that long, but this show does it really well, as it reveals the different colours in the paintbox gradually and it feels as though the canvas is being added to every minute.
I would love to see this production colour and paint the rainbow across the United Kingdom very soon! Indigo is a strong contender as my show of the year already!
Indigo continues at Leicester's Curve Theatre until Saturday 19th July 2025.
★★★★★
