Book and Lyrics: Park Chan Min
Music and Lyrics: Lee Jeong Yeon
Director: Lee Kyung-soo
Language is the most powerful tool there is, especially if you want to overthrow a corrupt monarchy that is keeping the people down in Park Chan Min and Lee Jeong Yeon’s musical Swag Age, which makes its UK premiere at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in an all-but fully staged one-night-only concert production. Its central message about the baddie aristocracy and the pure-hearted peasants denied the right to perform their traditional poetry may be a tale as old as time, but this award-winning Korean production hopes to win over its British audience with its plea for political and linguistic freedom.
The Golbin Gang are fighting the good fight in Joseon with an underground club where the banned Sijo poetic form can be performed among the villagers in secret. When a mysterious orphan Dan turns up promising to revolutionise Sijo with his more radical style, he soon discovers a closer connection to the region than he realised, joining the Golbin Gang to fight for his comrades when the King announces the first Sijo competition in 15 years.
Tonally, the longer first part of Park and Lee’s musical is pretty variable, ranging from broad panto characters like Dan, who fulfils the role of an outsider who must learn about himself and how to share his talent for the benefit of others, to more dramatic dark musical theatre as Hongguk lays out his devotion to his own version of nationhood. And there is a lot to keep track of, including multiple levels of disguise as heroine Jinnie, a core member of the Golbin Gang, adopts different identities some of which the gang know, some of which the audience know and seemingly none of which the villagers know – a strand that remains unresolved as the dramatic denouement sets her aside to focus on Dan and the remaining gang members.
The vocal performances are very strong in this concert performance, notably Kim Soo-ha as Jin and Yang Hee Jun as Dan, along with the members of the court who bring drama and depth. The story gets a little stuck on repeat here and there, and there is very little character development, but the musical numbers are rousing, and this concert version includes plenty of dance inspired largely by Korean hip hop blended with traditional dance forms that work nicely together.
It may be set hundreds of years in the past and performed in Korean, but Swag Age has much in common with the story of Robin Hood. Here, a band of outlaws try to fight against an evil Prime Minister, Hongguk, whose desperate control of power and his version of the nation is misadvising a King whom everyone still loves. To resolve it, the merry men and women, now led by the finest Sijo poet in the land, enter a competition in disguise in order to get close to their monarch and break the deadlock, just as Robin Hood is supposed to have done via an archery competition. And it is really interesting to see the similarities between the two stories play out over the two hours of Swag Age in Concert, with its interest in class disparity and the impact that good people can have if they work together.
Reviewed on 8 September 2025
The Reviews Hub Star Rating: