Musical take on The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is moving and charming

William Kamkwamba’s story has been told before – in a viral TED talk; in his memoir, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind; and in the film adaptation of the same name. But now it’s a musical, currently playing at @sohoplace in London until 18 July, and a charming one at that.

In 2001, famine struck the rural village of Wimbe in Malawi. Then-13-year-old William (played in the musical by Alistair Nwachukwu), the son of farmer Trywell (Sifiso Mazibuko), possessed a brilliant engineering mind, but had to drop out of school for lack of funds. Through scrapyards and borrowed library books, he nurtured his talent with electronics and tried to convince his peers that he could build a windmill from recycled materials, thus providing Wimbe with vital electricity.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind gives a lot away with its title, sure. The suspense here doesn’t come from whether William succeeds, but the twists and turns of his family and friends’ lives. William’s older sister, Annie (Tsemaye Bob-Egbe), is just as bright, but has the weight of others’ expectations hanging over her fledgling relationship with science teacher Mike (played in my performance by Tad Hapaguti). His firecracker of a best friend, Gilbert (Idriss Kargbo), is the son of the village’s chief and finds himself suddenly called upon at a time of crisis.

Most heartbreaking to watch is the catch-22 Trywell finds himself in: he wants his son to receive the best education possible, but if he’s to afford it – and to have enough food to live on – he also needs an extra pair of hands on the farm, preventing William from studying. As the situation in Wimbe worsens, Trywell is pushed to the brink and lashes out. Mazibuko sells this beautifully, walking a delicate line between a tragic and infuriating performance.

As a musical, not everything about The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind works. Most of the songs are pleasant but forgettable, despite the vocal talents of its cast, particularly Mazibuko, Bob-Egbe and Choolwe Laina Muntanga, who appears as the personification of the wind. The choreography is much better, particularly in the show’s most dramatic number, One Less (The Hyena). And the show features gorgeous animal puppets that add surprising pathos to proceedings.

On the whole, the first half of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind doesn’t quite click – it spends a lot of time trying to sell you on the charm of the village and its inhabitants, when it really doesn’t have to. When things get truly dire for Wimbe, though, something locks into place. At the performance I saw, during a particularly tragic moment for William, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.