Desirée

I have three reasons to be excited about Tampereen Työväen Teatteri premiering Desirée – Pieni yösoitto or A Little Night Music next September.

1) I respect the theatre for going for this brilliant, yet in Finland rather unknown musical.
2) They have my favourite actor in a central role. That's a surefire way of making me excited about literally whatever you might have to offer.
3) Judging by what I saw in their promotional event this week, this show is going to be good.

Let's take a look.

A Little Night Music is a Stephen Sondheim musical based on Ingmar Bergman's film Smiles of a Summer Night. It's a comedy (with its fair share of darker undertones) set in early 19th Sweden. The plot involves a handful of rich, idle people and their relationships.

It's rather simple, really. I drew this little chart to help explain how the characters are connected to one another:

I hope I didn't forget anyone.

That's about it. Send this combination of characters to a country mansion for a weekend to work out their problems, sit back and enjoy the show.

A Little Night Music has been produced in Finland only once before (in Turun kaupunginteatteri in 2011, back then called Kesäyön hymyilyä). I'm glad it's coming back.

Director Miika Muranen described the show as a fairytale for adults, taking place in a world where rich people mess around with each other. That might sound like your standard brainless musical fluff, but what in my opinion makes this show brilliant is how clever and touching it still manages to be. I've listened to A Little Night Music cast recordings countless times, but the lyrics and dialogue still make me laugh – and feel a bit emotional, too.

With half of the cast suffering from a midlife crisis, maybe this isn't the first show you'd expect a 21-year-old like me would enjoy... But even if that means I have the tastes of someone 20 years older than I am, I'm a fan.

I'm also a fan of Severi Saarinen, who will be playing Henrik Egerman (a young man studying to become a priest and hopelessly in love with his equally young stepmother), so that's a definite highlight in the cast for me. That's not to say the whole new Finnish cast doesn't seem good, though. Based on the snippets we saw in the promotional event, Veeti Kallio and Petra Karjalainen are going to have lovely chemistry as the leading couple Fredrik Egerman and Desirée Armfeldt.

Or what do you think:

All in all, I'm excited. Even though all Finnish theatres haven't yet revealed their upcoming repertoires, I have a feeling this just might be my second-most anticipated musical production of the whole Finnish musical season of autumn 2015.

We'll see.

Pienestä yösoitosta suomeksi: One Night in Theatre & Paljon Melua Teatterista.