Hard to get to grips with: Marie Curie: The Musical reviewed

Marie Curie: The Musical is a history lesson combined with a chemistry seminar and it’s aimed at indignant feminists who want to agonise afresh over the wrongs of yesteryear. We meet the young Marie, wearing her signature widow’s frock, as she speeds towards Paris on a train from Poland.

The essential materials of this musical are hard to get to grips with; the characters stiff, the tunes so-so

This opening scene is positively trembling with significant detail. Her fellow passenger, Sarah, is an impoverished Pole who has rejected the advances of a wealthy swineherd and decided to take a job at a Parisian glassworks. Her plan is to save all her wages and buy land in Poland which she will farm herself while sinking the profits into a theatre that specialises in cabaret. Wow. What an amazingly ambitious female migrant.

As the women part, Sarah gives Marie a handful of Poland’s precious soil, which she just happens to have in her purse. They vow to meet again and compare notes. Sarah already sounds a lot more interesting than the mousy little Marie, whose only aim is get her nose into a chemistry book and keep it there.

At the Sorbonne, she’s bullied by the male students even though she’s the smartest pupil at the university. She meets Pierre Curie, a passionless geek, and they contract an arid marital bargain. His job is to mind the kids and keep the house tidy while she runs the home-made laboratory and makes prize-winning breakthroughs. Marie’s science gear sits on the kitchen table and when she discovers polonium, she celebrates by inviting a few guests over to share a festive cake. Luckily, none of them dies of radioactive poisoning.