Review: ALAN TURING - A MUSICAL BIOGRAPHY, Riverside Studios

Realistically, it was only a matter of time before the British genius who saved millions during the Second World War got the musical treatment. The code-breaker and father of computer science lived a tragic life ended by the same people he assisted. Charged with “gross indecency”, his probation was only granted due to his agreement to undergo “chemical castration”. The injected oestrogen had horrifying consequences on his physical and mental health. To summarise his person, work, and influence in an 80-minute show sounds like a silly enterprise - and, largely, it is.

Unfortunately, Joel Goodman and Jan Osborne write a lacklustre score while Joan Greening’s book merely offers a bland series of events. Turing’s alleged idol, Einstein, said that time is relative, and this is the longest hour and a half of the year so far. Director Jane Miles presents a skeletal story with an arbitrary use of a fog machine and funky lighting choices while the songs glide into random bits of Latin or redundant turns of phrase.

This self-identified “musical biography” doesn’t dig much further than the introduction paragraph of Turing’s Wikipedia entry. It’s contextually erratic and misses all the details that would make the audience fall in love with Alan rather than sit passively in front of him. The songs are unchallenging in both semantics and melody, while the narrative immediately becomes shallow and insubstantial. There’s no “I want” song, no big number that digs deep into Turing’s turmoil, no extensive excavation into his process. It’s a flawed, boring attempt at finding the next British theatre hit. 

Joe Bishop and Zara Cooke do what they can with the material and blatant misdirection. He ends up being a lifeless and uninteresting Turing; she jumps between cliched portrayals for a track that can simply be described as “everybody else”. It’s a shame. They grapple with lyrics that slip into debatable quality (“I’m an odd number in an even world”) and amusing predictions of AI potential. 

Regrettably, there’s an amateurish air to the way they waltz ambitiously through his core experiences, neglecting any intimate exploration of the real tragedy. The government let one of their war heroes down with their pernicious homophobic laws and we can’t even remember the song associated with it. If the standards weren’t what they are, we could blame the poor acoustics of the venue and their terrible microphones, but it’s not the case.

For the musical to succeed as a thorough examination of one of the most influential scientists in modern history, it needs to be overhauled entirely. As in life, Alan Turing deserved better.

Alan Turing – A Musical Biography runs at Riverside Studios until 27 January.

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