The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical is a musical adaptation of the famous book and film of the same name. It follows the inspirational true story of William as he creates a wind turbine to save his family from drought and famine. Here’s my The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical theatre review.
Overview and plot synopsis of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical
The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical is a moving, emotional and inspirational story that is brought to life on the stage in a new musical. It’s based on the true story that has also been a book and a film. My The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical theatre review will first give an overview of the plot of the show, which will be familiar to anyone who has seen the show, and then talk about what I liked and didn’t like about the musical version of this story.
Act One
The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical follows the story of William Kamkwamba. William is a teenager living with his family in Wimbe, Malawi. The village has a strong community, but recurring drought and poor harvests place pressure on the community living in the village, including the Chief and his son Gilbert – who is William’s closest friend.
William attends the local school, and shows an interest in science and electronics. He is known around the village for his natural skills and frequently repairs things like radios for neighbours. However, his family’s financial difficulties lead to his removal from school when they cannot pay the fees. He continues to study independently by visiting the school library, where he reads about energy generation and begins to consider how wind power could support his village.
Act Two
As the drought intensifies, food shortages worsen and tensions rise between villagers and local authorities. William observes the failing crops on his family’s land and experiments with small-scale prototypes of a windmill using scrap materials. At first, his friends and family are sceptical of William’s plan to build a windmill to generate electricity to pump water. Gilbert has to deal with the death of his father, and is impatient with William’s plans, while William’s father is focussed on trying to farm the land in the traditional way. William also suffers the loss of his dog due to the famine.
However, William perseveres, and slowly his friends and family get behind his plan. William works with his friend Gilbert and eventually gains the reluctant permission of his father, Trywell, to dismantle a bicycle and use parts of the family’s limited resources to build a larger windmill capable of powering a water pump.
William completes the windmill with assistance from his family and community members. The device successfully pumps groundwater into the fields, allowing the crops to grow despite the drought conditions. The story concludes with the village beginning to recover from the famine, all because of William’s innovation, and William himself becoming famous across the world.
What I liked about The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical
I enjoyed The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical . It was definitely emotional, and had me properly crying in the second half. But there were joyful moments as well, with good music and comedy as well.
Joyful moments in the first half
The first half of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical was quite joyful and fun. I was a bit surprised by this – I was expecting the whole show to feel more emotional. But the first half was actually quite joyful. The show started off really fun and happy, with the cast interacting with the audience. It was a good start. It made the audience feel like they were part of the village, and you got a sense of how close this village community was.
There was quite a lot of humour in the first half. William’s best friend, Gilbert, was definitely challenging the energy of Ncuti Gatwa (famous from Sex Education and Doctor Who on TV). There were a lot of funny lines, and most of these came from Gilbert.
Songs and set
I enjoyed the songs in the show. I liked that they felt like African music, while being adapted to what you’d expect in a musical. A lot of the songs were quite fun and jolly as well – which again, I was slightly surprised about, but I did like. I’d like to listen to the songs again, so I’m hoping they release an album recording soon.
In the first half, there was a nice song about ‘the girl in the market place’, telling the story of how William’s mother and father met, with his sister asking how you know he’s the one – because of her love interest with science teacher. It was a nice song.
Other stand-out songs for me were the more emotional ones. I really liked the song from William’s father when he realises he only has five bags of grain from the harvest, that has to last the family until the next harvest. The end of Act One was really powerful as well, with William in the middle of the stage, with cast around and on both balcony levels, with a powerful song.
The set was good as well. It felt like an African village. And there were trapdoors in the stage, that opened to reveal soil underneath for the farming scenes. And the costumes were great as well, again really transporting you to Africa.
The emotion in the second half
The second half of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical was hugely emotional. The show did a great job of really making you feel the pain and the hardship of the famine. You could really feel William’s father’s despair as he tried to farm his land, to no avail. And you could feel Gilbert’s pain when his father, the Chief, dies. It’s a turning point for Gilbert’s character, from the joke-y friend in the first half to the suddenly serious new Chief – with sorrow and sudden new responsibility suddenly thrust upon him. And there’s also the pain from William’s father, when he is visiting his wife in hospital when she is ill with malaria, and he’s so desperate to keep his bike so he can get to the hospital to visit his wife.
The scenes where William’s dog dies are absolutely heart-breaking. The dog is portrayed as a puppet, and it’s brilliant, with amazingly life-like sounds and movements. The scene where the dog is struggling, and collapses, and takes its last breathe is harrowing – as is William’s reaction when he tries to wake up his dog. And then later on, there’s the scene where William carries his dog to be buried. Just when I thought I couldn’t be crying any more, that scene really hit me. There aren’t many times in a theatre show where I struggle to watch, but this was one of them. A lot of the audience needed tissues in the second half of this show. It’s amazing how a theatre show can raise so much emotion in the audience.
The ending – building the windmill
The ending of The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical is definitely a highlight of the whole show. It’s really emotional, in a heart-warming way, when William’s friends and family all get behind William’s plans and help him build the windmill.
The staging of building the windmill at the end is just amazing. The cast actually build it on stage. They have three huge ladder-like pieces, which they attach together on stage and stand up. And then William actually climbs to the top. it must be about 4 times as tall as he is, and he doesn’t have any ropes or anything. But him, and another of his friends, climb this structure on stage and build the windmill for the audience to see. And it’s amazing once it works, and starts to pump water – with a water sprinkler on stage as well.
The ending is amazing, with the combination of the props, staging, and emotional music.
What I wasn’t so sure about
Overall, I really enjoyed The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical . I found the second half really emotional, and the ending was brilliant.
However, in the interval, I wasn’t so sure. The second half definitely met my expectations, and meant I left the theatre feeling like it had been a really good show. But in the interval, I was wondering if something was lacking.
For me, the first half was just a bit too happy, joke-y and jolly. I liked the happy village feel at first – that was great. But throughout the first half, the serious issues are starting to grow, and the drought and famine are starting to be big problems. But for me, the emotion of it didn’t hit in the first half. Even though the story was introducing these more emotional elements, the songs, dances and jokes didn’t match this.
There wasn’t a lot of emotion when William could no longer go to school because his father couldn’t pay the fees. But surely that’s a huge deal? But it was dealt with quite lightly. William’s father has a beautiful, emotional song in the first half when he realises he only has five bags of grain from the harvest. But as soon as this song is over, the show cuts straight to jolly dancing for the President’s visit. The Chief becomes unwell/injured during this Presidential visit – although it’s not clear whether it was the visit that caused any illness/injury. But still, the show doesn’t feel hugely emotional at this point.
The second half of the show is definitely emotional, and so overall it feels a good show. But for me, the later stages of the first half just didn’t hit the right tone. For me, it stayed happy, jolly and joke-y for too much of the first half, despite the subject matter growing more serious.
Would I recommend The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical
I enjoyed The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical . My The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical theatre review is definitely positive, so I would recommend going to see this show. The music is good, there’s a happy and jolly start, and some real, raw emotion in the second half. And the staging of the windmill is brilliant. For me, it was just the later stages of Act One that didn’t quite hit the right tone. But overall, it was a really good show.
Hope you enjoyed my The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind – The Musical theatre review! Check out my other theatre reviews for more shows in the West End, across the UK and the world.
