Rent: Above all a love story

The rock musical RENT covers a year – from one Christmas Eve to the next – in the lives of a group of gay, straight and transgender artists, musicians and performers living in New York's East Village in the 1990s. They live "no day but today", their dreams and hopes accelerated by the shadow of AIDS, while their families phone in plaintively, occasionally, from afar.

Its writer-composer-lyricist Jonathan Larson died of an aneurysm the night before the show opened off Broadway in 1996, so never saw its huge success. Partly because of this, partly because it was the first musical to feature gay characters (in a modern reworking of the opera La Boheme) and partly because the world it describes has now changed, RENT is wreathed in mystique.

Abbey Musical Theatre is known for its powerful productions, and this remounting of its 2008 hit show is no exception. This time director Scott Andrew has the larger stage of the Centennial Drive Auditorium to play with, and his tight team makes the most of the "ex-factory loft" set. This is an emotionally charged show but above all a love story.

As the months pass in the storyline, Mark the film-maker (Chris Thompson) stands apart as narrator, the only character not one half of a couple.

The show has many memorable moments, outstanding duets and strong solos in an ensemble cast who throw their hearts in the ring.

My only small quibbles, in three otherwise impressive performances, are that musician Roger (Andrew Hodgson) and his on-the-edge love Mimi (Alexia Clark) look way too healthy to have drug and AIDS problems, and that the innate sweetness and warmth of transgender Angel (Jason Harkett) seems not quite to come across until the later scenes.

RENT is as much an experience as a show.

Even if it might seem a tad out of your comfort zone, go see it.